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Jforetoorb 

THE GOSPEL OF HOPE is a new message dictated by 
God and the Spirit of Christ to a mortal man and taken down 
by him just as it was dictated. As the amanuensis of this 
new message, I, the mortal man, wish to say this: It was 
written almost entirely at night, between midnight and six 
o'clock in the morning, and the work of transcription caused 
no mental or physical fatigue whatever, nor did it interrupt or 
diminish the amount of other work which I was engaged upon 
in the daytime. It was practically finished in fourteen days, 
between the 11th and 25th of December, 1911, with two short 
additions on December 26th and 27th. Each day's writing oc- 
cupied something less than the space of an hour. I did not 
think about it, nor brood over it, nor muse over it in the interim. 
Nor did I ever have any desire at any time in my life to do 
such a thing. 

I was brought up in a family where there was almost daily 
religious discussion. There was an old uncle whose father 
(my grandfather on my mother's side) was an Episcopal min- 
ister. This uncle read the family bible three times a day, prayed 
for the souls of the rest of us and stood with equanimity our 
attacks on his orthodoxy. However, when I brought to him, 
sometimes in response to his request for a good book to read, 
some atheistic work like Thomas Paine, he read these books 
carefully, because, as he said, I want to know the truth. My 



mother was a woman of ceaseless self-sacrifice and generosity. 
Her religious creed was expressed in a few words ; Good deeds 
alone can save the soul. Hell begins the minute you do a 
wrong. My father, a physician, had a scientific turn of mind. 
He was a wide reader of all sorts of books and was altogether 
a man of most alert and nimble intelligence. Although he never 
could quite grasp the idea of a personal God, because he said 
the universe being so vast made such an idea unreasonable, 
he helped to found and organize two Unitarian churches. Into 
this household of loving deeds and fierce discussion I, as a 
young lad, came gradually to take my part, and rapidly acquired 
enough skill and logic in argument to hold my own with grown 
men. At first I was on the scientific side, God was and could 
be only an impersonal force. Little by little, I found, how- 
ever that my uncle's simple faith had in it something superior 
to my father's eager and restless desire to argue. Whereas 
my mother's practical creed of deeds above words was superior 
to both. During my college course by the use of reason I said 
to myself, "It is unreasonable not to believe in a personal God. 
If, I argued, mortal men have such great longing for immortal 
life, and if people strive on earth so zealously to develop per- 
sonality and to praise personality, it is unreasonable to think 
that God should be impersonal." Thus, I came to believe that 
God is a personality and that he can within the limits of his 
own laws do whatsoever he wishes. When miracles are per- 
formed it is in accordance with a spiritual law which the slow 
reasoning power and the small vision of men are unable to 
grasp. 

Now you, Reader, may ask me: "But, did you never have 



any intimation before this Message came to you that you were 
to do any religious work?" And my reply to your question 
is this: "Yes! Twice I had intimations that sometime, some- 
where, I was to do other than worldly work." The first time 
was about ten years ago. I was walking along Sheridan Road 
about thirty miles north of the city of Chicago and looking 
up at the sky I said: "Of what use is my life? I have had 
education and have done but little with it. Of what use am I 
to my fellow men?" And out of the sky there seemed to come 
to me this answer, "You will be a religious teacher." 

"How strange ! how curious !" I murmured, as I went along 
my way. The second time occurred in the city of Chicago 
about seven years ago. I was walking North on Clark Street 
on the East side of the Street between Monroe and Madison 
Streets. Both sides of the street were thronged with people 
and the roadway was filled with teams. The roar of traffic 
arose all around me. I said to myself, "Here am I a stranger 
in my own city — perhaps the most unknown person in it. Yet 
here I have lived most of my life. I went to the Grammar 
School here and to the High School. From here I went to Col- 
lege and returned. Yet among all these many people I see 
no familiar face." As I said this to myself I kept looking up 
to the sky as if talking to someone. Then out of the sky there 
seemed to come this answer: "You will be more important 
to the cause of civilization and to the advance of humanity 
than all of this great city with the two million and more people 
in it." Again I said, "How strange! How curious!" as I passed 
along on my way. So much for myself. 

But, remember, reader, that it is upon this Message and 



not upon me that you should bend your mind. My part is to 
call your attention to one clear fact: God is around you here 
today as he was around men in the days of Moses and Abra- 
ham. He will come to men whenever and wherever they have 
faith, even as I, the Unknown, will come to speak to men 
whenever they have faith that I have a word for them to hear. 
But idle curiosity is not faith. And scientific hair-splitting is 
not faith. And psychological, microscopic, intellectual fussing 
is not faith. By authority I speak last of all this word, espe- 
cially to all the Christian sects throughout the world. God 
knows no destinction between his children. Theology is not 
religion. Perfect organization is not religion: — To demand 
that men must come to Christ before they can be saved is not 
religion. That is not Christ's way nor God's way. It is the 
way of narrow or misunderstanding theological vanity. It 
must cease. All the great and good leaders of the world were 
inspired by God. Men like Mencius and Confucius and Buddha 
and Socrates and Mohammed were all God-inspired men. 
There have been many other great men in every civilized and 
savage race who were likewise inspired by God. In propor- 
tion as the doctrines of these inspired men were afterwards 
organized by them or their followers into a theological sys- 
tem in just that proportion did their teachings begin to fail. 
It is not true that Christ was the only man sent by God to 
teach men. He was perhaps the greatest because the most 
humble; the wisest because the meekest; the most truthful 
because the most fearless. But even his words have been cor- 
rupted. He is made to claim what he never did claim and he 
is made to say what he never did say, in order to help along 



the theological system of men who founded a church on the 
outpouring of a loving heart. You cannot organize Affection 
nor stereotype Love. And whoever thinks to apply business 
rules to emotional and religious life shall find himself doomed 
to a pitiful failure. All Religion is broad and generous and 
merciful and loving. Whoever persecutes another man on ac- 
count of his religious belief is a pagan and the truth and love 
of God is not in him. Men who are cruel or unkind or brutal 
or tyrannical or narrow minded or egotistical or lovers of a 
mere sect are not nor ever can be religious. Religion is as 
broad as the heavens and as beautiful and warm and gracious 
as the sunlight. And loving kindness is the beginning and 
mark of all religious life. 

I say these things by authority and reading in this book 
The Gospel of Hope you may know by whose authority I 
speak. The conditions under which I am to do my work are 
these. It must all be a free gift to humanity. First, sixty-five 
copies of this Message are now being printed at my own ex- 
pense. Fifty copies will be sent to all parts of the world, into 
the possession of those who will be most careful to preserve 
them. Fifteen copies will be distributed among my personal 
friends. Permission is hereby given to any one to print this 
Message in full. And I earnestly request that they sell it at 
as near absolute cost as possible. Should I be called upon here- 
after to speak in any place and at any time I can receive no 
money whatsoever, but only the simplest form of hospitality. 
Merely food and shelter. Religion hereafter must be preached 
and taught out of pure love and not by salaried ministers. For 
the priesthoods of the world have been and are too often men- 



aces to the liberty of the people. The greatest things in life 
are always done out of and from a loving spirit. For love is 
the law. There is, there has been and there shall be no other 
law 

THE UNKNOWN. 



W$t Gospel of Hope 



CHAPTER I 



Now it came to pass just nineteen hundred and eleven 
years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that the world was 
again torn by dissension and rent by discord and oppressed 
by injustice. For the rich had become richer and the poor 
had become poorer, and everywhere the cries of widows and 
orphans and of the weak and the distressed arose as they cried 
aloud in their agony: How long, O Lord, how long? And 
they turned one to the other questioning and there came no 
answer. The Leaders looked to the People and the People 
looked to the Leaders and they saw not the way. 

Now since the people wished again to believe on the Lord 
and because they were earnest and sincere albeit sometimes 
vague and blind in the utterance of their prayers, the Lord 
heard and saw and had pity upon them. Therefore He sent 
a messenger unto them, saying: "Ye must be honest. Ye 
must render justice one to the other whether ye be rich or 
poor. All thy business dealings must be based on fairness and 
justice or else this nation or any other nation cannot perma- 
nently endure." Although this man sent by the Lord was a 
politician yet he preached in the Temples and was invited into 
the Churches and the People heard him gladly and when he 



had spoken they turned one to the other saying: — There is 
a man! 

So they elected him to the second office in the state. His 
enemies helped to do this because they hoped thus to be rid of 
him. 

Since for a hundred years no Vice-President, for that was 
the name of the office, had ever been subsequently chosen to 
be President. Thus there had grown up a superstition among 
the People that to be Vice-President of the nation was to be 
laid upon the shelf as the saying was and debarred from all 
future preferment. So he was elected by his enemies in hopes 
that this superstition alone might debar him from all future 
honors at the hands of the People. Now since this mighty 
Hunter had been selected by the Lord to do His will and to 
serve His people, the hand of vengeance descended from on 
high and the first ruler was stricken down by the hand of an 
assassin soon after his election. 

The first ruler was personally a good man but weak and 
not altogether clear of blame in his political record. For he 
had compromised and had associated with and been the friend 
of dishonest and unworthy and designing men. Therefore 
was he stricken down in the fullness of his years and honors 

Now straightway the second ruler whom the Lord se- 
lected for his work became the First Ruler or President of 
the Land. And he ruled seven years and six months wisely 
and well. Because he had ruled so well and because he had 
attacked so courageously the power of money intrenched in 
high places, the People cried out here and there and said: 
Let us make him permanent President, for he is the man. 

2 



But this mighty Hunter who was their leader, knowing well 
whence his strength came answered them and said: Nay! not 
so. I gave my promise to rule no longer than the stated terms. 
Lacking only a few months, I have held the highest office in 
the land for two full terms according to the Law. Therefore 
ye must select another man. But the People cheered him and 
cried out: No other man will do. Then came temptation to 
this mighty Hunter, this noble leader and lover of his race. 
He said unto his soul: The people say that I alone am wise. 
I will select a ruler for the land who shall fulfill my plans. 
And so the people shall be saved. He thus fulfilled the letter 
but not the spirit of the Law. Overwhelmed by tumultuous 
flattery such as few men ever had, he forgot whence came 
his power and he fell. 

Selecting a friend whose generous tongue had spoken 
pleasant things and whose rotund form denoted the friendly, 
easy-going and human kind of man, this mighty Hunter se- 
lected, worked for and elected his friend to office, convinced 
that his friend would serve the People well. Now having done 
his duty by his people as he thought, he took his son and 
many tents and guns and servants and went into the con- 
tinent of Africa to hunt. For so he rested up his body. But 
his soul was never weary for he never harbored any doubts. 
He was so sure that he was always right. 

Now no mortal man is always right, especially the man 
who loves the incense of flattery and applause. For Flattery 
will blind with dust the strongest eyes. 

The need of every man and of every ruler is to think. 
Without thought, deep and quiet and persistent thought no 

3 



man is wise enough to help his fellows in their hour of need. 
Yet lo! in the very hour of all his Nation's greatest need this 
mighty ruler as men thought went off like some raw boy to 
hunt wild beasts instead of seeking a quiet nook where by 
deep and earnest thought he might still aid and help his Peo- 
ple's struggles against those giants, Greed, Injustice and Finan- 
cial Power. 

He went away to hunt and not to think, when clear think- 
ing was the one need of the hour. Then fell the Lord's grace 
from the man and he became merely human, his wisdom all 
was gone and his high honors shorn from him. In the hour 
of Fate he failed. 



CHAPTER II 

Now thinking is the hardest task that is known to man. 
To think is labor twice distilled. More difficult than the row- 
ing of a boat against a strong sea and a rising wind; harder 
than the digging of coal or iron or silver or gold or tin or cop- 
per in a stuffy mine down in the earth; requiring greater 
strength and skill than wielding broadswords against over- 
matching foes; requiring more grit than facing winter winds 
on arctic wastes, so difficult it is to think down to the core 
of things and to solve problems as yet unknown and still un- 
ravelled. 

That is why the people leave the task of thinking to their 
chosen leaders. The task seems all too hard. People shrink 
from tasks that take heroic discipline of mind besides the ex- 
pert knowledge of what and how to eat and when. And yet 
I say unto you, no nation can be free or can permanently en- 
dure unless its people learn to think. 

For freedom rests upon the foundation stones of indi- 
vidual hearts and consciences, not on laws in written books 
nor yet on graven tablets nor in the authority and learning of 
any leader however wise. All men must learn to think, or 
else in time Liberty will languish and then die. So this mighty 
hunter and leader and lover of his land went away to Africa 
to hunt and not to think. But when a year had passed he 
came forth from the jungles laden down with trophies, he and 

5 



his son and his servants. And messengers met him on his com- 
ing forth. Some had even penetrated the wilds of Africa to 
speak with him and seek his wisdom. But he would not speak. 
He only said: How is it with my People? And the messen- 
gers answering him replied: It is not well. Doubt and Con- 
fusion and Discord fill the land. Thy people want thee to re- 
turn and aid them with thy wisdom. And the mighty Hunter 
marvelled much and questioning the Messengers again said: 
What is the matter? And the Messengers answered him and 
said: Thy friend whom thou hast chosen to succeed thee is 
not so wise as thou didst think. And marvelling more, the 
mighty Hunter questioned them again; and again they made 
the same answer. Then this mighty hunter quickly and brus- 
quely lifted up his hand, for such his manner was, and tossed 
up his head and said: I will return. I will no longer wait, 
I will return unto my land and people; and so he wended back 
his way and while he was in foreign lands he was feted and 
treated like an Emperor of ancient Rome. And all men hark* 
ened to him as to an oracle because he was an honest man. O 
that his wisdom had been equal to his honesty! 

When the ship at last had brought him to his native land 
shouts rent the sky and in the giant city where he was born 
the populace cried out in joy saying: He has returned. The 
man our country needs has come at last. 

Unto his home beside the sea leaders of all parties came 
to talk to him. For a time he held his tongue in leash and 
listened. But by and by not being wise and therefore not 
seeing his need of the long and deep silences that precede and 
accompany all thinking, he opened up his mouth, unloosened 

6 



his tongue and talked and talked too much, won over by the 
flattery that wooed him and whose incense rose up to his brain. 
Then the wiser men spread here and there throughout the na- 
tion, shook their heads and sadly said: Alas! he is not the 
man we thought. He talks too much. His heart may be of 
gold but his feet are of our common clay and his soul does 
not keep in view the visions which it sees. Too bad! Too 
bad! He is not the man. Thus spake the wiser men one to 
the other, consulting quietly and alone. 



CHAPTER III 

This is the new Revelation written down at the dictation 
of the Lord thy God, who loveth thee, by one who knowing 
books and libraries and colleges, yea! who has known the pride 
of learning and the temptations thereof, still has kept within 
him the heart and the soul of a little child. And it is because 
of the simplicity of his heart and his soul, and the humbleness 
of his desires, they being very few and very meek, all vanity 
and pride of ambition having long since been taken away from 
him in order that he might be prepared to do this work, although 
what the work was he did not then know. I say it is because 
of these things that I have selected him to give unto thee, O 
my People (and all races everywhere in all the world are my 
people) this my message. He did not ask for this task, the 
greatest known to man. He stood patiently waiting to re- 
ceive whatever word might come unto him and having re- 
ceived it to do it promptly and without fear and with modesty 
of mind and heart and soul. For without meekness of soul 
and simplicity of heart, no work of the Lord thy God ever has 
been or ever shall be done upon earth. Finding thus at last a 
man waiting and willing to do my will; who has no fear be- 
cause he knows that I am with him, and who would smile at 
the Crucifixion on the Cross, even as Jesus smiled once before, 
I have therefore selected him to write down my Message be- 
cause after waiting for an entire lifetime, that is up to and 

8 



into the fiftieth year of his age for the chance to carry some 
message from me to his f ellowmen, and because he complained 
not and repined not and cried out not against the length of 
time during which I tested him and tried him sorely in order 
to see what his strength was, and when at length I found that 
his steady answer to all the temptations which I placed be- 
fore him was in saying simply. I am in the hands of God. 
I am here on earth to do His will and His will alone. There- 
fore I have selected him to bear my word to men. Because 
he has believed. And therefore, when I came unto him in the 
darkness of the night, and rousing him out of a sound and 
restful and healthy sleep, said unto him: Awake and light 
thy candle and take thy pen and whatever paper there is con- 
veniently at hand and write what I tell thee to write for thou 
hast and shall have only such knowledge as I give unto thee — 
I thy Lord and thy God, — dost thou understand? — he an- 
swered and said Yea! Lord, I understand. 

Then take thy pen and thy paper and write thereon ex- 
actly the words I send thee and no other words whatsoever. 
For whoso tampers with the words of the Lord, he shall be 
damned; and all of his power and influence and authority shall 
be taken from him, yea! even though he may have been or- 
dained by men as a priest or minister to preach unto them on 
the holy Sabbath Day. But I know not ministers who preach. 
I recognize only ministers who minister unto me and my peo- 
ple. Whoso speaketh the Word and doeth it not, he is not 
and never has been a minister of mine. 



CHAPTER IV 

As I have written in my first gospels, those originally 
taken down carefully and afterwards ingeniously corrupted and 
added to by mortal men who sought to serve me by founding 
a religious institution that was to wield power and to perpetu- 
ate power among men instead of spreading my word and my 
spirit, which is the spirit of Jesus Christ, — for he is I, and 
I was in Him, — throughout the world. I say they do wrong 
who seek to perpetuate or to glorify or to symbolize or to make 
plain to the sight of men my spirit, except it be done spiritually. 
There is no other way in which to do anything except the 
right way, and when I said unto you, Follow me in spirit and 
in truth, I meant exactly those words and no other words. A 
right spirit, that is the spirit of the Lord thy God needs not 
sticks nor stones; neither cut stones nor hewn timbers to help 
make itself known to the hearts of men. 

I say unto ye now that walls shut out the sunlight of my 
Heavens and the blueness of my sky and the beauty of my 
world and therefore churches have become an abomination 
unto mine eyes, inasmuch as they are and have been for many 
years obstructing the words and visions and kind deeds which 
I put into the hearts of men to do. 

For the so-called followers of Jesus Christ, whom I do not 
punish because they are blind and see not, I say the so-called 
followers of Christ, and ye may well mark the word, which 

10 



word I send unto you not entirely in scorn but in pity and in 
wonder at thy blindness, — the so-called followers do not do 
my bidding nor do they follow nor are they followers of my 
Son, Jesus, in so far as they think to shut themselves up in 
their costly churches and listen to their costly music and sing 
hymns out of their dainty hymn-books and sit in ease on their 
costly cushions and swing incense in the costly censers of silver 
and plated gold. 

For know ye that in shutting themselves in, my so-called 
followers have shut me out. And I have taken my refuge 
again in the hearts of the poor and lonely and forsaken who 
day and night cry unto me. And I, their God, the living God 
will render them Justice; and I, their God, the living God, will 
give them comfort, and I, their God, will feed them and clothe 
them and uplift them whenever they too shall arise with clean 
hearts to follow me. 



11 



CHAPTER V 

But I say unto you, there is no heart that is clean that 
holds envy. And there is no heart that is clean that holds 
Hate. And there is no heart which is clean that holds the 
sneaking worldly ambition to possess power. Such are not 
and never have been the servants of the Lord. And I say unto 
you, there is no honor in poverty, no grace in rags, nor good- 
ness in obscurity or in ignorance. But the only badge of honor 
in a man is that he face life cheerfully and that he fight the 
battle of life bravely and that he accept what I send unto him 
gratefully and with a contrite heart. 

And furthermore I say unto you: The poor shall not 
become rich nor put off their poverty so long as Envy and Hate 
abide with them. For there be people by the million who do 
not know how to use riches any better than those who now 
possess them. And there be people whose hate for their fel- 
lowman because he happens to be a rich man is an abomina- 
tion in my sight. All such are not my followers. Let no man 
call upon the Lord until his heart is clean for I will not hear 
him. I say I will not listen to any man, rich or poor who hides 
Envy or Hate in his heart. Therefore, cleanse ye your hearts. 
Love alone can make the world beautiful and human life gra- 
cious. Therefore seek ye love in purity and in truth. 



12 



CHAPTER VI 

Now inasmuch as ye have had the words and teachings 
of Jesus Christ and yet have not believed on Him nor done 
His work nor followed His teachings, I will confound you and 
confuse you and mystify you by forbidding you, — yea! for- 
bidding you, — until you have cleansed your hearts, to even call 
upon His name, for ye have taken His name in vain. Ye shall 
cease to take the name of Jesus in vain. For either ye have 
taken it in vain both in word and deed by being proud and 
selfish and hypocritical, or ye have taken it in vain by allowing 
the vain and proud and hypocritical worldly folks to sit beside 
ye in your churches and to take part in your services without 
rebuke, thus giving countenance to hypocrisy and humbug and 
lying. 

Therefore, I, thy God, the living God who created both 
the Heavens and the Earth, forbid ye to speak the name of 
Jesus except in thy solitary prayers. If ye would follow Him, 
then I command you to go out quietly and alone to aid the 
poor and oppressed everywhere in the world. And when ye 
have done work for the poor and oppressed, then alone in thy 
chamber at evening time or in the early morning you may 
say softly to thyself: What I have done I have done, Jesus, in 
thy name. 

13 



Moreover I say unto you that whereas Jesus was poor ye 
have builded Him churches that are rich; and whereas He was 
meek, ye have builded Him temples that are proud; and where- 
as He was lowly, ye have reared monuments to Him that are 
high, under the pretense of honoring His name. But I say 
unto you: Ye have done wrong. These things are not done 
to His honor but to thy own pride and to the vanity of thy 
own hearts. I say unto you furthermore that He does not need 
either costly churches or fine music or velvet pews or swinging 
censers or electric lights or loud hosannas or hymns of praise 
or the tender and beautiful adorations of choral music, — nay! 
not even this, the best part of all the worship that is in thy 
churches today, but He needs the loyal devotion of loving 
hearts, of loving hearts I say. And what He needs He receives 
not in the measure that He needs it. For I say unto you that 
whereas you crucified Him once in the flesh, you have since 
crucified Him a thousand times in the spirit, as you are still 
doing. For your hypocrisy is a crucifixion to Him; and your 
timidity is a crucifixion to Him; and your fear of giving offence 
to worldly folks is a crucifixion to Him. And your graven im- 
ages of His body nailed upon the cross and showing His body 
and His wounds — all these things are a crucifixion to Him. 
For I say unto ye who are spiritually blind and therefore see 
not; who are spiritually deaf and therefore hear not; who are 
spiritually dumb and therefore understand not, that a physical 
wound unto a mortal man is nothing compared to a wound or 
insult to the spirit of that man. 

14 



And if a mortal man can and does (as many of them 
alas do) suffer far more from spiritual than from physical pain, 
then how much the more must the Lord Jesus Christ suffer 
whose soul was so much greater than His poor physical body. 
And if by representing in graven images the body and wounds 
which thy Lord received upon one day and in one mere mortal 
hour of His immortal life, are ye not degrading Him when ye 
do not understand the nature and meaning of His soul that hav- 
ing infinite capacity for pity and for love hath therefore a like 
capacity for pain? For the ability to love carries with it the 
capacity to suffer. A little love may be followed by a little 
suffering, but a great love is followed by a great suffering, 
unless those who are loved know and feel and understand and 
consequently appreciate the love given them. For that is the 
law. 

Therefore I say unto you: Beware how ye degrade un- 
wittingly the Christ whom ye desirest to follow and whose 
teachings ye say ye desire to do. For to do honor unto any- 
thing requires first of all understanding. The child cannot 
truly honor its parent nor can the parent rightly honor the 
child without understanding. For understanding begetteth 
sympathy. And the brutality of the world rests upon misun- 
derstanding, that is to say upon a lack of sympathy. So I say 
unto you; if ye would honor the Lord Jesus Christ follow Him 
and do His will in meekness and lowliness of spirit. For how 
can He be at one with you or you be at one with Him, when 
ye neither know nor understand nor sympathize with the spirit 
of Christ? 

15 



Be ye patient and ye shall in seeking find. Be ye humble 
and ye shall in striving attain. Be ye lowly and ye shall dis- 
cover the way to Life everlasting, which is simply the way 
of Love. 



16 



CHAPTER VII 

Again I send this message unto you. Ye must believe — 
O ye must believe. There is no other way. And in order that 
ye may believe I will close your temples and your places of 
worship which ye have allowed to be defiled by the feet and 
the hands and the voices of Hypocrites and Pharisees. For 
even ye, my Followers, have read my Word and obeyed not; 
ye have perceived my law and done it not. For have ye not 
feared more to give offence to the rich Pharisee than to give 
offence to thy Father who art in Heaven. Therefore I say 
unto you my People, I say unto you my servants, that ye 
shall put away with reverence and with carefulness the Bible, 
yea! even the Bible thou callest holy and which I sent unto 
thee for a living word to live by, to act by, to do thy daily 
business and to guide thy daily conduct by, and with only 
faith within thy heart and with the simplest of simple and mod- 
est clothing upon thy backs, thou shalt go forth beneath the 
open sky, thou shalt look into the heavens and say: There 
is a living God! There is a living God who is our Father in 
Heaven, and He will save us and He will guide us and He will 
instruct us and He will uplift us. 

Then ye will, yea! ye must believe. And whatsoever He 
bids thee do thou shalt do it, and whatsoever He bids thee say, 
thou shalt say it. And whatsoever He bids thy heart and thy 
soul and thy mind believe, thou shalt believe it. For there is 

17 



no God but God. And God the Father is still a living God. 
He sent unto thee Jesus Christ to teach thee peace and har- 
mony and brotherly love. He sent Jesus, the poor carpenter, 
the Christ, to teach thee to be at peace one with another; to 
instruct thee in the way of salvation and eternal life. He 
sent Christ unto you, I say, to banish the idols from thy tem- 
ples, and uncleanness from thy hearts and thy minds and all 
injustice from the world. And I say unto you in order that 
thou mayest say the same thing unto thyself, — unto thy Heart 
and thy Soul and thy Mind, unto the deep conscience which I, 
the living God, have put into every one of ye, — How is it my 
child with thee? Dost thou barken unto thy conscience and so 
walk by the light which I have given thee? 

Dost thou conduct thy business according to thy con- 
science and treat the servants who serve thee, according to 
thy conscience? Dost thou buy and sell in the market place 
according to thy conscience? Dost thou eat and drink and 
go to bed according to thy conscience? Dost thou love thy 
wife according to thy conscience or according to thy pleasure? 

I demand of thee an answer, O thou man who dost not 
believe there is any living God; I demand of thee an answer and 
thou shalt make an answer even to thy own self and I, thy 
Father shalt know what thy answer is, even unto the end of 
the world. For I am everywhere, as I have said to thee before. 
I am in thee and thou art in me. For I am thy Father who 
lovest thee. Remember always these words, — I am thy Fath- 
er who lovest thee, but thou must believe upon me. For I am 
the Way and the Light and the life everlasting, but ye must 
believe. Ye must believe upon me. 

18 



CHAPTER VIII 

All those who would laugh may laugh! All those who 
would jeer, may jeer! All those who would doubt may freely 
and plentifully and most gorgeously and with the sharp air 
of unripe youth may continue to doubt even so long as it 
pleaseth them. Doubters alone suffer from their own unripe 
knowledge. And no wise man would be so unwise as to inter- 
fere with their folly. Oil and water do not mix. So wisdom 
and folly do not mingle. Yet I say unto you the Truth shall 
still prevail. For Truth is straight as sunlight, and Truth is 
clear as daylight, and Truth is beautiful as moonlight. There- 
fore, the Truth must and will prevail. 

Ye who love the Truth must not and shall not fear. 1 
forbid ye to contend under the delusion that it is thy duty to 
spread it. I forbid thee to do anything in hope of instructing 
thy fellows in it except one thing and one thing only, — to 
merely state it. For God alone can open the hearts and minds 
and souls of men. Therefore shall ye who believe on and try 
to live by the Truth, ye shall merely state what the Truth is, 
and thou shalt leave the rest to God. 



19 



CHAPTER IX 

Because ye have believed not in the Spirit but only in 
the names of things, and moreover because ye have cried, 
Lord! Lord! when there was hypocrisy in thy heart and worldly 
cunning in thy soul and mere shrewdness in thy mind and 
because ye have allowed hypocrits to stand beside thee in my 
temples, and to sing hymns in my name and to my so-called 
glory without rebuke, thus giving comfort by thy silence to 
hypocrisy and to deceit, when the honest curses of blasphe- 
mous sinners would have been sweeter music in mine ears, 
therefore I say unto you my people, my children and all ye 
who believe in the Lord, I send you herewith another Message 
and it shall come unto thee and be revealed unto thee and be 
called by thee^ — The Message from the Unknown. 

Because, I say, of your worshipping of mere names, — 
even the name of your Lord Jesus Christ and not the Spirit 
and the Life that lies behind the name, I will confound you 
and confuse and mystify you by giving you not even a name 
to conjure with or to believe in or to call upon in thy need. 
Thou shalt henceforth call alone upon me the Lord thy God, 
and I will lead thee and save thee and comfort thee. Thou 
shalt have no other friend or saviour, but only me the Lord, 
thy God. Ye shall repeat day and night; There is no God but 
God, and the Power and the Spirit and the Love of God is 
everywhere, and only by believing on Him and allowing your 

20 



hearts to be filled by His love shall ye attain unto any real life 
either here or hereafter. 

For I say unto you that the worship of the names of 
things and not of the spirit of things is idolatry, and ye have 
become idolaters and the Truth is not in you. Nor can the 
Truth come unto you until you cease from Pride and become 
even as little children. By pride I mean religious pride and 
professional pride and the pride of the good man in his good- 
ness and of the scholar in his scholarship; of the orator in his 
orations, and of the philanthropist in his philanthropy, and 
of the minister in his holy calling. For I say unto you that 
unless ye cleanse your hearts from pride, ye shallt not see nor 
hear nor be able to do the bidding of the Lord thy God who is 
with thee, who was with thee and who shalt be with thee 
unto the end. Amen! 

But bear thou well in mind these words. Thou shalt do 
deeds, not speak words, for deeds alone count. I never have 
and never will listen to the hypocrit who cries, Lord! Lord! 
But I demand of each man of you, — What have ye done and 
what do ye now? Except through good deeds there is no sal- 
vation for any mortal man. And if any of the words of Christ 
as put down by men and called the New Testament seem to 
contradict what I say here, I say unto you, those words are 
not the words of Jesus but interpolations put in by designing 
men who thought to aid the Truth by false teachings even as 
they think to spread the Spirit of Christ by the mockery of 
erecting costly temples to Him who died upon the cross and 
who in life wandered poor and lonely by the Sea of Gallilee 
and who often had not the where to lay His head. Woe unto 

21 



men, I say, who tamper with the words or who suppress or 
who add to the words of the Lord thy God. For they shall 
suffer eternal damnation. Ye must believe, and in order to 
know what to believe, ye must take the time and the trouble 
to understand. For only by a clear understanding shall the 
Word of the Lord be made plain unto you. 

I sent Jesus unto you, and first you crucified Him in the 
flesh upon the cross, and since then you have crucified Him a 
thousand times in the spirit although ye knew it not. And I 
say unto you that the crucifixion of the spirit was harder to 
bear than the crucifixion upon the cross, and because ye men 
of the world and ministers of churches and the followers of 
Christ could not see, that ye have crucified Christ, I say, not 
only in the flesh and upon the cross, but that ye have never 
ceased to crucify His Spirit, I, the Lord thy God, take back 
unto myself my Son, the Redeemer of the World, and I forbid 
ye even to call upon His name, yea! even upon His name. But 
ye must call upon me alone, the Lord thy God, until such 
times as ye shall see and shall understand — clearly understand 
what the words, crucified in mind, mean. When ye understand 
and realize I will send Jesus to you again. 

And in order that ye may know what to believe, for ye 
are now ready to believe, I say unto you: Ye shall believe upon 
thyselves and upon thy fellowmen, for they also are the sons 
of God. 



22 



CHAPTER X 

I, the Unknown, speak with authority. Not of Law books 
nor of Medical books or of Scientific books or of Religious 
books, nay! not even with and by the authority of the Bible 
which is the greatest of all books, but I speak by the authority 
of the Living God, who sends this Message to you. My words 
are His words; my thoughts are His thoughts; my expressions 
are His expressions. 

For this Message is from God. Ye may deride it, ye may 
scorn it, ye may laugh at it, ye may at first and ye will at 
first disbelieve it, but in the end you will receive it. For ye 
shall in good time come to know and to understand this Mes- 
sage, and understanding ye shall at last receive it. 

Ye may and ye will at first marvel and wonder and laugh 
and ridicule and turn it round and round in thy mind and 
peek at it cautiously with thy soul and shut it out from thy 
timid but fearing and unbelieving hearts, but ye shall finally 
receive it and ye shall understand it. I tell thee! I warn thee! 

For thy immortal soul needs it and thou knowest in thy 
soul how great that need is. Every man everywhere has 
need of this Message. I do not ask or demand of you any 
solemn vows or bowing of heads or meek silence when ye shall 
hear this Message read. If this Message cannot silence thee 
and bring quiet into the very depths of thy souls, ye may revel 
until it can. 

23 



If this Message, plainly and quietly read, cannot bow 
your heads in prayer and in gratitude, let your heads remain 
erect in all their pride and amidst all their doubts. If this 
Message cannot still your laughter and silence your scorn and 
quench your doubts, let your laughter and your scorn and 
your doubts continue, for ye alone will suffer therefrom. But 
in the end ye will and ye shall receive this Message. 



24 



CHAPTER XI 

Not in the churches will this Message be first received. 
Indeed most of them will be the last to receive it, because 
although they know it not they have become the citadels of 
entrenched and established hypocrisy and greed and pride and 
theological vanity. Not in high places or in learned places or 
in scholarly places will this Message be first received. For was 
Christ's first Message to the world received in such places and 
by such people? 

Rather was it not as ye may read in the New Testament 
that Jesus came first unto the poor fishermen beside the Sea of 
Gallilee? And He came to them because the powerful and 
rich and learned would have none of Him. Who was He, 
forsooth, to teach them! Who was this son of a carpenter 
that he should dare to dispute with the Rabbis who were 
learned in Mosaic Law and the Law of the Prophets? Out 
with Him! Was not such the attitude of everybody in the 
world who was somebody, toward Jesus, Joseph and Mary's 
son, who was nobody. For was He not born in a manger, 
and society people do not like mangers except for their cattle 
and horses. Moreover, Jesus was poor, and well-to-do people 
do not like poverty. Jesus was also no scholar, and therefore 
the schools had no welcome for Him. And thus it was that 
Jesus wandered among the poor and lowly people along an 
obscure sea. It was the only place where He could wander 
and be received. 

25 



Would Jesus fare any better today, think ye, in our busy 
and so-called liberal and modern world, where everybody 
wants to be somebody? And remember, Christ was nobody. 
When Greed and Pride and lust of Power can find no use for a 
man, they say, out with him! What use would our modern 
world have today, I ask ye, my Christian Brother and Sister, 
I bid ye ask and answer the question; — What use or welcome 
would our world have for Jesus today? I beseech ye to pause 
and think before ye try to make answer even to your own 
soul. But when ye have thought, I command ye to make an- 
swer truthfully and frankly to the very last letter and then add, 
Marvellous are the ways of the Lord. 



26 



CHAPTER XII 

I say unto you, furthermore, to remember most of all that 
God is a loving God. But before ye can love Him, ye must 
learn to understand the meaning of the word Justice. For 
without Justice no real love can live and abide, in the world. 
For that is the Law. As to taking the name of the Lord in 
vain, ye may do as ye please in thy speaking, only see that thy 
doing is right and honest, and thou wilt find favor in the sight 
of the living God. For God is a loving God. He hath no 
time for wrath except against hypocrits and liars and sneaks 
and thieves. You may curse God, but if ye do the will of God 
ye shall be forgiven. 

For I do say again to you, it is not words but deeds that 
count. Therefore I care not what ye may say or how ye may 
say it, provided thou doest the will of the Father. For it is 
good deeds and not good words that find favor in the sight of 
the Lord. But for the honest sinner, that is to say for the sin- 
ner who thinks he is honest and hopes he is honest and there- 
fore will some day be honest, when he shall understand and 
perceive the Law, for such a man or woman God has respect 
and will have tenderest mercy and infinite patience. 

Now as to following the Law of God, ye may do as ye 
please. There shall be no judgment and no penalty save the 
judgment thou renderest and the penalty thou puttest upon 
thy own soul. For I say unto you the Conscience of any man 

27 



is more just and more exact and more severe than ever was 
the judgment of God or of his fellowmen. Therefore I say 
unto men to beware at their soul's peril of disobeying their 
consciences. For the conscience of each man shall hereafter 
be the only Bible of any race in any land under any sky. Not 
even this Message shall be a substitute for a man's own con- 
science. For if anything in this Message at any time or in any 
place or under any circumstance seems to violate or to go 
against thy conscience, then I say unto you that ye shall reject 
the words of this Message which thou hast not as yet under- 
stood, and thou shalt follow thy conscience, which thou shalt 
always be able to understand if thou only wilt. Furthermore, 
I say unto you that your conscience is and from God. And 
when ye seek to disobey thy conscience thou art then disobey- 
ing the voice of the Living God, who is everywhere. 



28 



CHAPTER XIII 

And I bid ye remember always and to never forget in the 
darkest day or in the gloomiest night that thy God is a loving 
God. I say further that regarding the writings which ye read 
in the olden Gospels in the Old Testament and in the New 
Testament about the wrath and the judgment of God, that such 
words are not and never were the words of God the Father 
who created the world and who loveth every single living 
thing thereon or of Christ, the Son. 

The writings which tell of God's wrath and of his judg- 
ments were false words which were interpolated by scribes 
and priests and so-called ministers of God for their own pride 
in hopes thereby the easier to increase their authority and thus 
to control and to instruct the people. The priests and scribes 
had in the olden times as they have today, many good inten- 
tions but unwise actions. And it is a wise action alone that 
does now and did in the olden time and shall in the days to 
come find favor in the sight of God. For without wise action, 
the liberties and virtues and the abilities of mankind shall be 
taken away from them, and they shall stand naked beneath the 
heavens. 

For it is not enough to cry Lord! Lord! but thou must 
do the will of the Lord and thou must do it now. Thou must 
not hesitate nor argue nor debate. Thou must do it now. For 
it is only thy deeds that can save thee, all the writings in all 

29 



the books of the world notwithstanding. And therefore since 
deeds alone can save thy body and thy soul and thy heart from 
destruction, therefore I hereupon say unto thee what things 
thou shalt do and how thou shalt do them if thou would be 
happy or prosperous or beautiful or successful in any way 
whatsoever in this life. Thou must be active. Thou must 
work with thy muscles and thou must work with thy mind. In 
other words, thou must use all of the faculties and abilities 
which I have given thee. To use part of thy ability will not 
suffice. Virtue is the balance and perfect adjustment of all 
thy faculties, mental and physical and spiritual. Vice is the ill 
or disproportionate adjustment of the faculties given to thee 
by God. Soon or later all ill adjustments in every man and 
every race of men shall be made manifest and shall work to 
their detriment by limiting their capacity for happiness. Vice 
is simply the self -limitation by a man or of a woman of their 
power to live and to enjoy life. Virtue means that the man 
or woman who is virtuous has obeyed the Law which is to use 
wisely and with moderation all the faculties which have been 
bestowed upon them. And to use wisely all the faculties given 
to thee is for each man and for each woman the real question 
and problem of life. Thus it is not possible for a man or a 
woman or a race to say, I will work now as it pleaseth me. I 
have plenty. When they think thus and speak thus they are 
wrong. Men and women must work if they would be virtuous 
and hence happy. A lazy woman shall be the parent of vicious 
children. A pampered woman and a woman over-petted and 
allowed to coddle her fat body shall be the progenitor of vicious 
offspring. And mothers who are themselves virtuous must 

30 



see that their growing girls and boys are active, especially dur- 
ing the formative period of their lives, or they shall have cause 
to regret their lack of wise oversight at the right time. And 
the best way for parents to avoid worry over the waywardness 
of growing girls and boys is for themselves to obey the Law. 
For the Law of Life is labor. Not physical labor alone nor 
mental labor alone nor spiritual labor alone, but mental and 
physical and spiritual labor taken all together. Ye cannot 
omit any one of these. For a man or a woman may be active 
and laborious with both mind and body, yet that shall not be 
enough. If their heart is not open and active and laboring to 
aid some fellow human being, then shall they become unbal- 
anced as human beings and the vice of selfishness shall enter 
into their blood. And the entrance into a man's or woman's 
soul of one vice is the entering wedge in time for other vices. 
That is why in apparently respectable families there will sud- 
denly and to the astonishment of all beholders appear a black 
sheep. The reason is that vice was there before in an appar- 
ently innocent and unsuspected form — unsuspected by the 
world at large. But people who are vicious know it well but 
hope foolishly to conceal it. And sometimes they do conceal 
it for a time, only to have it break out in plainer and more un- 
concealable form when they least look for it. Secret vice is 
the deadliest and most dangerous form of vice, because it is 
often only half suspected by its very possessor. But vice that 
is open can be fought. A scarlet woman on the street is less 
dangerous to society than an overfed and lazy woman, who 
practices and follows the practice of vice under cover of the 
marriage law, when almost daily she violates the Law of God. 

31 



She thinks to escape punishment, hut she shall not escape. She 
shall see her own sins go into and mar the lives of her own 
children. And she shall come to see and fear the eyes of her 
own children lest they turn and say : Thou didst this to me. 

Therefore I say unto thee again: The Law of Life is 
labor. Thou must labor with thy body; thou must labor with 
thy mind; thou must labor with thy heart. Thou must do use- 
ful toil every day; thou must do right thinking every day; 
thou must do kind deeds every day; or if thou canst not do 
them all every day, thou must do them as often as thou canst. 
But the most wholesome life for both man and woman is the 
life that allows them to use muscle and mind and heart every 
day. And no matter how far away ye may drift or be forced 
away from healthy and wholesome and normal life, ye must 
remember what normal life is in order that thou mayst go back 
to it at the earliest possible moment. These then are the things, 
O my People and my children, which ye must do if ye would 
fulfill the Law, and by fulfilling the law seek the goal which thy 
soul has set before it and the human joy which thy soul needeth 
and thy heart requires. For there is no distinction made nor 
was there ever any distinction made by me the Lord, between 
human and divine things. All good and wholesome things 
everywhere are divine. Joy is divine and good music is divine 
and dancing is divine and mirth is divine and thought is divine 
and feeling is divine and love is divine, loving being the es- 
sence and moving spirit of all these other things. And when 
any or all of these things are clear and pure and when they fol- 
low their own natures and not the nature of some corruption 
which has crept into them or is hanging like a poison vine 



around them they are divine. Therefore when I speak of 
things, I speak only of real things and I say unto you that all 
things that are real are true and all true things are divine. 

Ye must not misuse words nor misunderstand ideas nor 
mix one idea with another. But ye must think clearly and 
speak plainly and then ye will be able to act rightly and 
promptly and according to the Law. For in order to follow the 
Law, thy heart and mind and soul must clearly perceive what 
the Law is. And the reason why men so often fail to follow 
the Law is not because they were born evil as has been written 
and falsely written in holy books by priests who doctored the 
Holy Books for selfish purposes, but because they do not see 
clearly. And the reason why they do not see clearly is that 
they have not done their share of the work of life which is to 
take my gifts of Body and Mind and Heart and Soul and learn 
to make them work in harmony with one another to one end. 
For the test of a man or a woman is that they should be able to 
work together toward a single goal and for a single purpose. 
But before anyone can work in harmony with his brother or 
with his sister, he must first learn to work in harmony with 
himself, that is with the several separate elements that go to 
make up his own nature. 

Therefore, I say unto you: If ye would learn how to be 
at peace with the world and with thy fellowman, thou shalt 
first learn how to be at peace with thy own soul. 



33 



CHAPTER XIV 

Here therefore beginneth the statement of what deeds 
my People shall do before they shall dare to call upon my name 
or sing hymns in my praise or worship me with lip service 
or song service. For I say unto you yet again that the only 
true and proper praise or word of gratitude to thy Heavenly 
Father from his children are kind deeds and righteous deeds. 
And if thou canst not do the deed required with thy right arm 
because it is weak, or with the muscles of thy legs because they 
are palsied I say unto you: — Be not discouraged nor envy thy 
healthier brother or sister or neighbor, for a deep and silent 
and brief prayer of good-will for the success of some fellow 
man is also a deed. And the spoken word of cheerfulness to 
a little child or to an old man or to a tired Hercules, this is also 
a deed. Furthermore, a bright and honest and sunny smile is 
a deed. A generous and encouraging look is a deed. The 
hearty sound of applause to the deserving actor is a deed. And 
all things that are clean and clear and vigorous and strong and 
kind and generous and merciful, all these are also deeds. 

Therefore no man and no woman and no child shall be in- 
capable of the worthy deeds that alone constitute the right kind 
of and proper testimonials of gratitude to the Living God, — 
thy Father Who art in Heaven. Each man shall do deeds ac- 
cording to his strength and his ability. Therefore the strong 
and the able men of the world must do strong deeds and fear 

34 



not. The strong must sweep away old wrongs and unjust laws 
and selfish social customs. And first the strong man must stop 
thinking wrongly and unjustly and unfairly concerning his 
weaker f ellowman. And the strong and virtuous woman must 
cease to think wrongly and unfairly about her weaker sister. 
For the strong man is often a strong brute and not a real man 
at all; and very often it was the merest chance that saved the 
so-called virtuous woman from being in the gutter beside her 
sister. Therefore I say that the strong must strive to bring 
about the reign of justice upon the earth. Selfish greed must 
cease. Men must be reverend, and no man can be reverend 
except he be generous. Generosity is the first and foremost 
testimony of the soul of man that he is grateful to his God. 
Courage is the possession of every grateful soul. 

Fear is the mental and moral brand that is burning into 
the shrivelled souls of men who know they are unjust. The 
just man shall fear nothing. 

In order to render justice, ye must begin by making thy 
laws just and thy social customs just and thy moral customs 
just. For the mark of the Christian is that he follows in the 
footsteps of Christ by doing kind and just deeds. But before 
a man is generous let him first learn to be just. For when 
Justice is done upon earth generosity will not be needed. Now 
the only way for men to show their belief in God is to do God's 
will. So I say unto you again: Ye must believe. Before ye 
can act ye must believe in action. Before thou canst create 
thou must believe in creation. For they who have not faith are 
barren, whether man or woman, artist or poet, or carpenter or 
stonemason. For Faith is everything. And the greatest of 

35 



faiths is the faith that a right deed is its own reward. For the 
doing of a good deed is in itself reward enough for anyone, and 
whoso sees not and believes not this cannot see or believe any- 
thing. 

Therefore waste not time on unbelievers. Let them go in 
peace upon their ways, but whenever they desert their unbelief 
and wish to learn then thou shalt teach them the Law. For 
the Law of Life is faith. Without faith, the world starves and 
withers and is of no use. But faith shall cover the deserts 
with roses, and faith shall make the waters arise out of the 
depths of the earth and soon or later to every man and woman 
faith shall bring the high glory of love, — of a love that shall 
make the eyes shine and the feet dance and the soul sing. 
Therefore I say unto thee yet again: It is by faith alone that 
all things live and move and have their being. 

Therefore faith itself is a kind of deed that precedes all 
other doing. Ye must study in order to believe, and must put 
thy heart in an attitude of reverence toward thy kindly fellow- 
man, and toward the beautiful earth and toward the gracious 
sky and thou must teach thyself the daily habit of silent con- 
templation if only but for five minutes each day. Now once 
having faith all things follow, and there is no end and no limit 
to thy accomplishment. Yea! the very dreams of thy inmost 
heart and soul and mind shall come true. Only ye must be- 
lieve. 



36 



CHAPTER XV 

Having belief, therefore, I say unto you, my People, ye 
must abolish usury. And the words of the Old Testament 
herein are most true and wise, — all interest on money is usury 
and usury is accursed of God. Therefore in this one great ex- 
ample of my neglected teachings, ye may discover how far ye 
have wandered from the right path and how far ye have strayed 
from the law of Love which is my law. For do not the very 
churches loan out money at interest, and thy church deacons 
and thy ordained ministers and all of the principal men of thy 
congregations? And in loaning out money at interest and thus 
breaking the law as laid down in my first gospels to you, do 
they not therefore become hypocrits and Pharisees, and is the 
number not a myriad and is not the custom universal? 

Yet because it is universal, it is not the less an abomina- 
tion to me and an offence in my sight. Therefore I say unto 
you: No just man shall take interest from his fellows. Who- 
ever makes a loan shall receive his money back and the bor- 
rower shall pay the necessary expense of transmitting or trans- 
porting the money to his friend. But whoever desireth to be 
a just man in the sight of God and of his f ellowmen shall, when 
he loans money receive back only what he loaned. For I say 
unto you one-half of all the wrongs and inequalities and dis- 
cordances and injustices of Life today have their seed and 
their origin in the loaning of money out at interest. For the 

37 



drawing of interest as practiced today is putting the chain of 
slavery around the neck of the poor and the unfortunate. And 
the chain once being around the neck of a human being be- 
comes a dire temptation unto the rogue and the scoundrel to 
perpetrate injustice under the pretext of the law. 

But I say unto you such a law if it be human comes from 
the Devil and shall be a curse and a snare unto all who use it. 
Therefore I say unto you: Abolish usury. It is from such evil 
customs as the charging of interest for the use of money that 
mercy has become a mockery; and philanthropy has become a 
mockery; and charity has become a mockery, for have ye not 
permitted hypocrits and liars and thieves to hide themselves 
under the cloak of these fair names in order to maintain their 
power and to avoid the just wrath of an angry God and the 
well deserved punishment of an outraged and maltreated peo- 
ple. 

Therefore I say unto you that having allowed these beau- 
tiful things and noble things and gracious things to become the 
tools and accomplices of robbers and of thieves, I forbid you to 
name the name of any of these things except thou do it in 
silence only and with a contrite heart. And the only name 
which I shall henceforth allow thee to speak aloud in church 
and school; in the market place and by the road is the word 
Justice. And thou shalt know and learn to honor the meaning 
of this word and thou shalt make deeds of justice the end and 
aim of thy life during the period of thy probation. And when 
thou hast learned to practice Justice then will the fair and 
gracious and noble things of life come of their own accord. 

38 



For wheresoever there is mental sunshine there is spiritual life. 
And Justice alone can bring to thee the light thou needest. 

I say unto you that a just man does right before he is 
asked to do it. If a man wait until the request is made that 
he be just and honest, the Devil is already in him and it is only 
a question of time when he shall slide down into iniquity. For 
the man who desires to be honest demands honesty of himself 
and insists that the demand be met. The man who wishes to 
render justice does not wait for a magistrate or judge. His 
own conscience declares what is the Law and he fulfills the 
verdict. Men who wait to ask the opinion of any other law 
except the moral law as to what the law is, are not honest men, 
but they are robbers waiting their opportunity. For many 
men are good because it takes too much energy to be bad. A 
considerable part of the so-called goodness of the world comes 
from laziness and cowardice. Many a so-called good man 
would be bad if he dared. But he does not dare. He is afraid. 
And moreover he lacks decision and promptness. Much pov- 
erty and ill-fortune from which apparently good and God- 
fearing men suffer comes from a sloppy and careles mode of ac- 
tion and consequently of thinking. Many people are too lazy to 
think. But without thought there can be no justice and no 
right action. The most illiterate people will slobber all over 
when it comes to the use of words. They are either stupid and 
dull and say nothing, or they lose themselves in a mist of words. 
Careless words are the undoing of the mind. Thought like 
action goes straight to its mark, but a lengthy discourse or a 
palaver of words is an abomination. The man who thinks 
clearly and vigorously will speak briefly and to the point, but 

39 



the liar and the falsifier and the trickster, the vain man, the 
weak man, the ambitious man, the schemer, the cunning man, 
the designing man, the pompous and vain-glorious man, the 
shrewd and worldly man and the self -deceiver, all these love to 
wallow in sonorous and high-sounding words. 



40 



CHAPTER XVI 

But I, thy God, do not waste words. Few and simple are 
the words that express Truth. Therefore I say unto you, Be- 
ware of Words! For words have become a deceitful and de- 
ceptive abomination. Words are used nowadays not to express 
but to conceal thought. The law books are groaning under- 
neath the weight of words. The medical books are cunningly 
decorated and foolishly festooned with phrases meant to over- 
awe the ignorant. The orators juggle with words and the poli- 
tician still relies upon words to aid him in keeping the people 
under control. 

Therefore I say unto you — Beware of words. They are 
a snare and a delusion unless used reverently and with discre- 
tion, each word being in its place and a clear reason running 
through them all and connecting them with some high and 
noble purpose. For behind all words lies the purpose for which 
and the spirit in which they were written. And the purpose is 
the real reason of all expression and the spirit determines 
whether the purpose is to be rightly attained. But many are 
the purposes and few the fulfillments. 

Darwin, the great scientist and naturalist, who in his 
career upon the earth did more than many regiments of idle 
and insincere ecclesiastics to advance the domain of knowledge, 
and therefore of light among men, has well written thus : "Of 
all the difficult tasks which man faces in his upward march the 

41 



most difficult is to increase by ever so little his ability to ex- 
press thought in written language." 

Language is and should be the reflection of a man's soul. 
When a man's soul contains flaws and cracks and pompous in- 
sincerities, so will his written or spoken speech contain flaws 
and cracks and pompous insincerities. For a man must utter 
himself, and he will do so after his nature and not otherwise. 
Therefore I say unto you, be careful of thy words, for thy 
words art thyself. What thou art thy words will be, unless 
both of ye be hollow mockeries and mere spider webs floating 
in the air. Now the mistake that man makes in trying to use 
language is to set himself to study the combinations and intri- 
cate subtleties of which language, and therefore of which 
thought is capable before he knows the meaning of the com- 
ponent parts to be combined. Thus in order to know the inner 
meaning and to express the meaning of many words, thou must 
know the meaning that is the soul of single words. Begin at 
the beginning if thou wouldst hope to get ahead in the journey 
before thee. Words are deeds. And too many deeds produce 
confusion. Man tries to do so many things that he often does 
nothing well. He writes so many things that the thought he 
desires to express is lost to sight in the jungle of words that 
surround the thinking. Great is the power of single words! 
The motto, for instance, of Harvard College at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, in the United States of America, is one word, 
Veritas — Truth. And the use of that one word is one of the 
secrets of the ability of that great school to influence the lives 
of its students. One word, Truth! What more is needed to 
place before the eyes and hearts of young men facing life? 

42 



There is no word more gracious, no word more beautiful, no 
word stronger, no word more simple, no word more powerful 
than the word Truth. Let such words sink into thy soul. Study 
them. Act them. Live them. More words than what are 
needed for life shall be an encumbrance. Therefore I say unto 
you: Burden not thy heart or thy soul or thy mind with words. 
A few right words like a few right principles are sufficient for 
the life of man; more is merely waste lumber that blocks the 
way. 



43 



CHAPTER XVII 

For I say unto you that no man can travel upward whose 
baggage is so heavy that it keeps dragging him downward. And 
the heaviest baggage which mortal men have ever thought it 
necessary to encumber themselves with are the false notions 
and silly ideas that should have been left with their baby clothes 
beside the cradle of the race. I say unto you that not only the 
body but the soul of man must be free before he can travel up 
the hill of Life and gain the wisdom that awaiteth him on the 
mountain top. Therefore I come to free thy souls, and when 
thy souls are free from false notions and poor childish supersti- 
tions, then shalt thou stand erect in God's sunlight and go forth 
unto thy soul's victory. And I say unto you, knowing well 
the pain and agony of mind and the wonder and astonishment 
and dismay of mind which these words will cause you, I say 
unto you that the writings called the Old Testament are a his- 
tory of the Jewish race during its growth upward from the dark- 
ness of savage wars into the light of knowledge and of love 
and not sacred books nor henceforth to be considered sacred. 
The writings entitled the Old Testament are strewn with the 
wisdom and truth and beauty of the sayings of God, but the 
wisdom and the beauty and the truth have been marred by 
bungling and meddling scribes and by worldly and dishonest 
priests who have thought to improve upon the words of the 
Lord by the additions of their own folly. I say unto you 

44 



furthermore that the greater part of the Old Testament is not 
sacred but secular writing. It is sacred only in the sense that 
all men's records and struggles upward out of the darkness 
are sacred. But the Old Testament shall hereafter be taken for 
what it is, — the history of the most wonderful, the strongest, 
the ablest and the most reverend race upon the earth, the Jewish 
race. They are and they have been God's chosen people. And 
I say unto you, ye Gentiles, who think ye have supplanted the 
Jews in the sight of the Lord, that henceforth whenever thou 
shalt meet a Jew thou art to remember that he had no more 
to do with the crucifying of Christ than thou hadst. Nay ! not 
so much. For the crucifixion of Christ on the cross was a thing 
not worth one-tenth of the hub-bub which ye make about it. 
The only agony endured that day was not endured by Christ 
upon the Cross but by His followers who believed in and loved 
Him. The nails that entered his flesh hurt Him not, the blood 
that flowed from his wounds dismayed Him not. For what is 
physical suffering to the suffering of the soul? What was the 
weak body of Jesus compared to the largeness and courage of 
His soul? And the soul of Jesus did not suffer. For did He 
not smile and say unto the multitude, Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do. And would Jesus have smiled 
thus if He suffered? Nay! think not so. 

So I say unto you that the death of Jesus is misunderstood, 
and the meaning thereof is misinterpreted. And I say further- 
more unto you: Ye must read aright the meaning of words and 
the meaning of life before wisdom and the light of wisdom 
can come unto you. I say yet again unto you that whereas 
Jesus was crucified once upon the cross with nails through His 

45 



hands and feet and suffered the indignities of public scorn and 
derision which He did not deserve, since then ye have crucified 
Him a million times by your unbelief and your ursuries and 
your defilng of His temples with your money-making methods 
and the insulting of His teachings by your hypocritic grabbings 
and your vain and proud boasting concerning His meekness 
and His lowliness and His love of the world he came to save. 
I say unto you that Jesus was not meek in the sense you mean, 
and that Jesus was not lowly according to your ideas, and that 
He did not come to earth to do what you imagine. 

Jesus came to bring Justice to the world that He might 
love the world made beautiful thereby. And Jesus came to 
plead for the poor and the lowly who pass the doors of your 
churches every Sabbath day and do not enter in because of the 
pride and vanity that defiles the pews and litters up the aisles, 
— the fine dresses and gay bonnets and the dapper airs of the 
ushers and all the falsehoods that must come wherever men 
speak words they do not mean and daily do deeds which they 
themselves approve not of. Jesus scourged the money changers 
from the temples of the Jews. But now are there no money 
changers in the churches of the Gentiles today? Answer that 
question if ye dare. Answer that question, I say. Then let 
thy lying lips be still. Woe! I say unto hypocrisy and to all 
who practice it 



46 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ye must believe! There is no other way. So again I 
repeat this old admonition with a new emphasis: — Ye must 
believe! And I say unto you that belief is no weak tea, gruel 
and water, milk and water, delicate diet for invalids. Faith is 
the heroic conviction of strong souk that God does live; that 
there is something more than what mortal hands can touch and 
something higher than what puny hands can reach. Faith is 
the fighting and dead-in-earnest conviction of the soul that real 
things are worth striving for, battling for and dying for. Faith 
declares to the Conscience of every man that a man who will 
not fight until he drops in his tracks for what he thinks is right 
is no man at all, but only some pretty or fancy or work-basket 
imitation of the real thing. And no man wants to be an imi- 
tation of anything. Therefore I say: Ye must believe! And 
I say that the test of belief is that ye are willing to fight to 
maintain thy point of view and thy mite of wisdom. Now I 
do not believe in war or bloodshed or brutality. The great 
battles of life are spiritual battles which are won by men acting 
and living and speaking exactly what they believe and not oth- 
erwise. 

1 say unto you that when the essential and vital principles 
of life are at stake, all compromise is wrong and a sin. There 
are times when mere outward courtesy and consideration is a 
crime and a sin. For to be courteous and considerate toward 

47 



a base man or toward a thief or a traitor is to act a lie and to 
give heart to the bad man to overlook and to have respect for 
his own badness, which he is very apt and very swift to do. 
Therefore to be honest ye cannot always be the smooth and 
polite and gentle spoken neighbor. For thinkest thou that 
Jesus was very gentle or polite or courteous when he scourged 
the money-changers from the temples? Where, I say, is the 
Christian church member of the Gospel who would dare to 
walk up to a man who has cornered wheat or oats or rye or 
beef or eggs and say : Sir, you are an oppressor of your fellow- 
man. You are not even a decent beast, for you do more harm 
than a thousand wolves who enter a sheepf old and devour the 
unweaned lambs. You are an enemy to the human race, — a 
brutal and vicious and dangerous member of the human society 
which you have degraded and befouled and defiled. Where is 
the Christian who dares repeat in essence the words of Christ 
when they are needed? Therefore what shall I say unto you, 
who pretend to be Christians and who are too polite to advance 
beyond the pretense? The gentle Jesus was not so gentle nor 
so meek as thou art taught to believe. Jesus came to establish 
Justice and Fair-dealing and Right. Scarcely a year has passed 
since He actually was crucified that He would not have been 
crucified had He by any chance escaped the first crucifixion. 
There is no Christian country today where Christ could live a 
year save in concealment or among rustic folks, except by daily 
running the risk of death. The world has improved and grown 
better and kinder in the last nineteen hundred years, but the 
wolves and hypocrites are still many, and the money changers 
still talk business in the temples and churches of the Living 

God. 

48 



Therefore I say that the temples and churches must be 
cleansed of hypocrites and hypocrisy or given up entirely to 
them. For I say that churches and so-called temples of God 
are no more holy than other places except they be made and 
kept holy. For was not Christ born in a manger and in sight 
of the litter of a barnyard? And dares t thou say that thy tower- 
ing church is holier in its pride than Christ's manger in its lowli- 
ness? For I say unto you that God needs not great cathedrals 
for his worship. God needs merely the clean hearts of rev- 
erend men. 

Whatever stands in the way of moral and spiritual clean- 
liness, I say down with it and away with it! And no man's 
heart and no woman's heart can be clean if it be filled with 
pride and vanity. 

Therefore I say unto you: Be not eager to rear churches 
to the glory of God. Is God's glory so poor that he needs thee 
to make it rich? Is God's power so slight that he needs thee 
to emphasize and to symbolize and to strengthen it? Is God's 
greatness so small that He needs thee to increase it? 

Nay, I say unto you, worry not over giving to God great 
glory or long prayers or droning psalms or loud hosannas. Take 
care to give thyself a bit of true meekness and of real reverence. 
Cleanse thy heart and wash clean thy soul from the stains of 
theological and religious pride, and thou shalt not need to give 
glory to God. He will give glory to thee for thy conversion. 
For to save a religious and pious sinner full of pride who would 
like to do God's work while he neglects his own, — to save such 
a man is a pleasant sight to the eyes of the Lord and a hopeful 
sign to the soul of God. For of all the woeful things that God 

49 



has to endure from the waywardness of his erring children the 
most woeful is to watch them trying to run and to manage His 
vast universe, when they cannot run or manage their own lit- 
tle houses. 

Therefore I say unto ye again, cleanse thy hearts and souls 
of pride and learn to be modest in order that some day thou 
mayst attain knowledge. For without modesty, no real knowl- 
edge can enter the heart or soul of any man. And a mental 
lumber-room filled with heaps and piles of raw and unassorted 
facts is not knowledge any more than a store-room is a fit place 
in which to sleep. The mind of a man must be put in order 
and kept in order before either can rightly fulfill the purpose 
for which it exists. 



50 



CHAPTER XIX 

I say unto you that your so-called Christianity as preached 
and practiced by the majority of the so-called Christians today 
is a mushy and weak Christianity at which the Devil chuckles 
under his chin and laughs up his sleeve. And as a result of 
his jollity over the condition of things which he ought to fear 
but which of late years he doth not take the trouble even to 
deride, the Devil is no longer thin and hatchet-faced as thou 
dost picture him in thy paintings and represent him in thy 
dramatic spectacles, but the Devil has become a fat and unctious 
and rosy-faced Devil, with a double chin, thick neck and most 
ponderous belly. Laughter can make even Devils fat, and the 
Devil says that he could not get thin again if he wanted to, 
there are so many comic and clownish sides to the thing which 
has filled all the churches of the land and which calls itself 
Christianity. Even Christians, says the Devil, have to go out 
of doors to air their creeds and many a Christian has to own 
up to himself that he was a much better fellow, more honest 
and more efficient in every spiritual way before he joined the 
church. For the hypocrisy which he is obliged to countenance 
every Sunday and continue to countenance by his silence all 
through the week is killing his soul by inches. Now the re- 
ligion which kills instead of saves the souls of men is no re- 
ligion at all. 

That is why strong and virile and clean-headed and stout- 

51 



hearted men by the million will no longer enter a church even 
on Sunday, for they refuse to allow their souls to be utterly 
destroyed even in the name of and under the pretense of Re- 
ligion. They permit their wives and children to go but they 
stay at home themselves. The reason is that men say unto 
their souls : It is bad enough to countenance and practice hy- 
pocrisy and injustice for six days in the week, but we draw the 
line at the seventh day. We know that Hell will be hot for us 
and the tortures thereof grievous but we do not want to make 
it hotter nor the tortures worse by defiling even our religion 
with the hypocrisy of the world. We have a little decency and 
conscience and sense of right and wrong left, and that is more 
than many so-called ministers of the gospel can say, — God help 
them! So say strong men and virile men who are sinners but 
would be saved if they only knew the way of salvation. For 
all men long for righteousness until they have been deceived 
and tricked and disgusted by the falsehoods and untruths that 
pass current under the name of Religion. And there are many 
such falsehoods. The greatest of which, as I have told you, 
relates even to the birth and coming of Christ the Redeemer, 
even Him and the beauty of His life have men defiled by their 
lies which still pass current under the name of holy religion. 
But I say unto you, I, the living God, who send and write down 
this Message by the hand of a mortal man in the darkness of 
the night and in the quiet of the early morn, arousing him 
out of a restful sleep to do it, that ye shall cease to defile my 
religion and my world with lies and thou shalt cease to defile 
the coming of Jesus with wrong stories and with lying fictions 
that the soul of every true man and woman knows are false. 

52 



Ye shall cease, I say, to lie. And when thou hast ceased 
to lie and to tolerate liars, then shalt the wonders of my world 
and the meaning of my miracles which are done under and in 
fulfillment of law be known unto you as they are. Thou shalt 
know at length when the last lie and the last falsehood has 
been crushed under foot and shall realize and shall understand 
the meaning of the divine word Love and thou shalt compre- 
hend the meaning of my ancient creed, Love is the Law ! Love 
is the Law! There is no other law, there has been no other 
law, there shall be no other law. And thou must study and 
work and ponder and meditate until thou shalt see and feel in 
thy soul and heart and mind these words, Love is the law. 



S3 



CHAPTER XX. 

Now one of the most vicious things about so-called Christi- 
anity as well as many other religions like Mohammedanism, 
for instance, is their solemnity. While birds sing in the trees 
and children laugh in the fields and the brooks go dancing and 
smiling over the pebbles beneath the waving and swaying 
rhythms of the dancing leaves, healthy men and women 
will shut themselves up in dark and gloomy churches and 
kneel in pious adoration, thinking thus to worship God. 
But I say unto thee, thou art wrong. Pious solemnity and 
grave and orderly gravity of countenance and lowly bowings 
and kneelings and intonings, nay! even the reverent ejacula- 
tions of praise to the Lord from whom all blessings flow, all 
of these may be simulated and imitated by the hypocrit. But 
joy and leaping Laughter and the ring of real Merriment and 
the dancing of merry feet and the bright flashings from inno- 
cent eyes cannot be imitated; and if an imitation is attempted 
the attempt is so ludicrous and so bungling that the word coun- 
terfeit! counterfeit is written all over the liar's face and in 
every movement of the hypocrit's body. Therefore I say unto 
you: God loves most of all merriment and joy and innocent 
mirth and seemly and modest dancing, and where these things 
abound ye shall find reverend hearts and worshipping souls 
and clean minds. For the sunlight and the open sky and the 
fresh breezes and the singing birds and the innocent human 

54 



joy that is like unto these things shame the hypocrit and he 
would fain leave the assembly and go away on the plea that 
he is horrified at such levity or he is pained to observe such 
frivolity. Therefore he will depart and ye may breathe pure 
air once more. For there can be no goodness without liberty, 
even as there can be no sunlight without light. Freedom is the 
parent of virtue. And there can be no such thing as a whole- 
sale giving of liberty to any man or to any race. Each man 
and each generation of men must fight not only to maintain 
but to increase their meed of Freedom. They shall either add 
to or subtract from their inheritance. What came from the 
fathers cannot remain intact with their sons. The sons must 
in turn increase or decrease the amount of liberty bequeathed 
to them. Now the American people in their War of the Revo- 
lution had barely won their liberty when they began to lose it. 
For they misconceived the nature of liberty. For Liberty can- 
not be given. It must be won. The condition for freedom 
may be inherited. All the catch-words and insignia, — the flags 
and the banners and the festal days like the Fourth of July may 
come down as an inheritance, but the soul and the spirit of 
liberty must be fought for physically and morally and spiritually 
before it can be appreciated and thus become a real possession. 
Now I say unto you that all your latter day love of clubs and 
associations and conventions is a great menace to the cause of 
Freedom. I warn you in time. For the love of Liberty is God's 
gift to the soul of each individual man. He cannot delegate 
it or give it over or give his proxy of it to any committee of 
safety or Director's meeting. He may act in concert with his 
fellows and throw the influence of his vote and his personality 

55 



toward a common purpose and for a specified end but he must 
be there to see that the end for which he votes and works must 
be kept steadily in view and that the purpose be attained. For 
men cannot elect committees or presidents or chairmen and 
then lean back and say, — I have nothing more to do, I have 
done my duty to the State! See what a fine president I helped 
to elect! O foolish fellow! Thy work is just beginning when 
thou thinkest it is at an end. Mark me! Thou must see that 
the man elected does what you elected him to do. Every move 
of his political life and every action is thy move and thy action 
and if he does not well thou dost not well. It is thy business 
to see that he does well and to insist on the doing. For it has 
well been written: Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty! 
And I say unto you: There is no short cut to great ends ! 



56 



CHAPTER XXI 

To the Negro race I say: Thou must live on the soil. 
Thou must live on the soil and become the most expert farmers 
and agriculturists which the world has ever seen. Then when 
thou hast done what thou canst do and hast done it well, the 
Lord will come unto thee and lead thee upward unto higher 
things. But ye shall first learn the lesson which all great na- 
tions have learned, before thou in turn become a great nation 
and a mighty people. For I say unto you that ye shall have 
thy day, even though that day is not yet at hand. First thou 
must learn from the soil patience. Thou must learn from the 
soil endurance and the benefits of steady toil. For nature is 
not wasteful or erratic. She abides. Thou shalt learn from 
the soil thoughtf ulness and thrift and perseverance and strength. 
In brief, thou shalt learn what all great races have had to learn 
— the bitter and dull lessons that make men great. And the 
greatest and most bitter of all great lessons which Nature has 
to teach is patience; to work! to wait! to bide thy time. And 
always to wait some more, cheerfully, steadily, uncomplain- 
ingly, relying on thy God to comfort thee and to sustain thee. 
And so I say unto you, in time a black skin shall become as 
fair in the sight of God and of all men as the fairest lily; a 
black skin shall be like a badge of honor when ye have made it 
honorable; a black skin shall be the mark of strength when 
ye have made it strong; a black skin shall be the sign of loyalty 

57 



when ye have made it loyal; a black skin shall be the symbol 
of nobility and virtue when you have made it noble and vir- 
tuous. And thou shalt do all of these things in good time. 
But thou must work and toil and thou must cultivate and live 
on the soil if thou wouldst uplift thy race. As it has been writ- 
ten, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. But thou 
must be patient and thou must work with thy heart set on the 
high goal of race nobility which thou mayst not live to see but 
which will come. In order to cultivate the soil I say unto you, 
buy land. An acre, two acres, ten acres, twenty acres or fifty 
acres as thou canst use it. But burden not thyself down with 
much land. Buy only what thou canst use, and do not if pos- 
sible run into debt. Better two acres paid for than two hundred 
acres mortgaged. For thou shalt keep and thy children after 
thee shall keep the two acres and call it home. But the two 
hundred mortgaged acres may be all lost if thou art not careful. 
Therefore, I say, buy land. Do not speculate in it. Buy it for 
use. Answer every insult from every white man who may 
insult thee, — in one way and silently: — buy land. Answer 
every sneer at thy color in one way: — buy land. Reply to 
every joke about the dullness or backwardness of the Negro 
race in one way: — buy land. Resent every insult and wrong 
to thy wives and thy daughters in the same fashion: — buy land. 
Keep day and night in thy mind two words: — buy land. And 
when thou and thy fellows have done this and learned to use 
the land which thou hast bought, half of all thy problems will 
be solved. Having leaders that do not flatter thee, follow them. 
For God has already sent to thee a great apostle and leader. 
And although he himself was born in slavery, he shall show 

58 



thee the path to freedom. For I say unto you, He was sent to 
thee by God, the living God, Who art thy Father in Heaven. 
Remember! Love the soil, till the soil, live on the soil 
and thy day of glory and splendor and power shall come. Only 
be patient! For patience is greatness. Without patience no 
man or race can be great. And be sure of this : that as certainly 
as the day follows the blackness of night, so surely as the sun- 
shine shall dissipate in good time the darkest storm clouds, so 
surely shall thy day of deliverance and of glory and of power 
come and abide with thee. Only be patient and work. Pa- 
tience and work shall level mountains and fill up seas and scat- 
ter flower gardens over the vilest and deadliest swamps. Pa- 
tience shall bring thee unto thy own. I give thee hope and in 
due season the hope shall find fulfillment. Only be patient! 
For patience is the father and the mother of all virtues, of all 
greatness and of all achievement. Without patience nothing 
true or good or noble or fine or high can be accomplished. 
Therefore I say unto you, be patient! 



59 



CHAPTER XXII 

Furthermore I say unto you that harmony is the strength 
of human as well as of divine life. Therefore true life must 
be musical and rhythmical and harmonious. All healthy and 
joyous and wholesome things sing both at their play and at 
their work. The waters of the mountain brooks go dancing and 
singing on their way to the sea. But the stagnant waters of a 
swamp or a bayou do nothing but breed malaria. They are 
not wholesome. The souls of some men are like the waters of 
a swamp, they sing not and move not but in their dullness they 
breed the foul and poisonous vapors of envy and jealousy and 
strife and contention and hate, which they circulate among their 
fellows, spreading contagion everywhere. 

The winds of heaven go leaping and laughing over land 
and sea, bringing rain for harvests and coolness to fevered 
brows and power to the white sails of a thousand waiting ships. 
And the girl in love likewise laughs and sings and dances for 
sheer joy, wishing she could hug in her arms the whole uni- 
verse, so glad is she that she lives and that everything in all 
the world loves everything else. Such it is to be in harmony 
with Life. And I say unto you that disease and all the ills that 
flesh is heir to comes from mental and spiritual discord. I say 
that to stab a man with a sneer is worse than to stab him with 
a dagger. You may draw the dagger out, but the sneer like a 
pronged barb stays festering in the wound. I say also that to 

60 



put doubt into the mind of a man or to gently and mildly drop 
words of suspicion into his ears is worse than to give poison 
unto him. For you may give a man a proper emetic or antidote 
and get rid of the poison. But the doubt or the suspicion will 
remain to corrupt and weaken his mind and vitiate his blood. 
Ye kill the soul when ye poison the mind. Furthermore I say 
unto you that the man in doubt and therefore out of harmony 
with himself and the world is a tired man. For nothing so saps 
the life blood of every human being as discord. Cursed be all 
who introduce discord into the world! But I say unto you 
that the man in harmony with himself and with his soul and 
with the world sings and skips and leaps and dances along the 
barren ways of Life. For to the soul in harmony with itself 
and with the world all things are beautiful and noble and true 
and radiant with the joy and splendor of living. 

Thou sayest: God has made this a wonderful and a 
beautiful world! Then why not live in that world? Are not 
the starlit heavens a finer ceiling over thy head than any fresco 
painters ever painted? Then if ye love beauty, go and live 
where beauty is. Cease to use idle words and to palaver with 
pretty phrases. Who is not strong to endure and to toil and 
to suffer for the sake of his love is no lover. Therefore do not 
pretend to be a lover if thou art not. For a lover like a soldier 
must be a strong man and not a weakling. For true love is the 
most heroic and stout hearted and high minded thing in all the 
world. Therefore beware how ye mix up with other and lesser 
things the word, — Love. Defile not nor misuse the word, I 
pray thee. But I say unto you that harmony and beauty and 
grace of character can never come from lies and compromise 

61 



and hypocrisy. Ye must first have Truth and Justice before 
ye can have Love. Before ye can have rest ye must earn it. 
Before thy soul shall have victory, thou must win it. I care not 
what olden books or Bibles say, I bring ye the Law. Ye are 
to live not in the Yesterday but in the fullness of Today and 
in the splendor of Tomorrow. Therefore ye shall leave the 
dead past bury its dead. But ye shall face the coming light of 
a new day. For I bring ye The Gospel of Hope which shall 
speak to the soul of every man wheresoever he may be. And 
when any man anywhere has read this word he is permitted to 
doubt and disbelief and to laugh and to scorn or otherwise waste 
his precious time. But in the end he shall receive. For men 
obey the law of necessity. And no man shall escape the influ- 
ence of this Message any more than he can escape from his 
own soul. This Message is the voice of his own soul and every 
man is interested in himself. Therefore I defy you to reject 
these, My words. Ye cannot escape receiving them any more 
than thy lungs can escape breathing the air which they must 
have. Ye may turn this Message upside down and inside out. 
Ye may scorn, deride, laugh at it or disdain it. But in the end 
ye shall receive it, because ye must. That is why ye shall. All 
men do what they must. I do not beseech thee or berate thee 
or threaten thee with eternal damnation if ye do not believe. 
I simply say: Do as ye please. But it is thyself and not any- 
body else's self that shall suffer the consequences. A man may 
stay in the dark if he wishes, but when he needs the light, he 
will come into it. For that is the Law and the Law will be ful- 
filled. I speak to men, not to children; and I speak the truth 
and men will receive it. I do not flatter; I do not cajole; I da 

62 



not say thou must believe. Rather I say, do as thou please, 
but also please do not forget the consequences. Like a minister 
at a revival I do not say: Brother come ye unto Jesus and be 
saved! I say Brother, ye are a man. You act as a man and 
think as a man. Therefore you are a free agent. But I say unto 
you: Thus and so is the Law. Take it or leave it at thy peril. 
For the Law will be fulfilled. In the long run nobody can es- 
cape the Law. Nor is there any short cut nor death-bed re- 
pentance which can satisfy the Law. The Law is slow but sure. 
Ye must believe, but ye must first act out thy belief. Ye can 
say what ye are pleased to say, but ye must do what is right. 
For the Law is stern and just. When the Law of Justice and 
Love is fulfilled, this earth will be filled with Beauty and Har- 
mony. The Brotherhood of man shall come. Men shall see 
that Greed is silly; that Injustice is individual suicide, and that 
Tyranny is a ghastly mistake. That the only law known to 
all free and beautiful and joyous things like roses and birds 
and running brooks is the Law of Love. Therefore seek ye to 
live the Law. For from the Law cometh the joy and gladness 
and all the happiness of human life. 



g;<> 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Now I speak to you as men. And I say to you as men 
who dare fight and as men who dare think and as men who 
dare do the things they think, I say I honor you for what you 
are and some day I expect to honor you far more for what you 
will become. For you and I are alike in this. We both hate 
and despise and abominate the hypocrit, the liar, the thief and 
the sneak. And we have no use for and no time for weaklings. 
For the first of all virtues is strength. Without strength re- 
ligion is a poor and a puerile thing. And without strength pa- 
triotism is a milk and water gruel, fit for babies. Without 
strength no good can come to anyone from anywhere. For not 
only is strength the basis of virtue, it is virtue. But strength 
to be permanent must be clean and self-contained and patient 
and with the fighting sinews of soul as well as of body. And 
there can be no real strength without mental and moral and 
spiritual strength. Physical strength is merely the foundation 
stones. The others are the framework and the adornment of 
human character. But as no house is more than just begun 
when the foundation stones are all in place, so the character of 
a man is just started toward real construction when he has at- 
tained to perfect physical strength. Physical strength is not the 
end but is merely the beginning of real strength. For without 
the fighting sinews of the Soul, the Body shall wither. It is the 
soul alone that lifts up and fills out and invigorates and vitalizes 

64 



the body into permanent vigor. And good women and good 
men are warm blooded and warm hearted and clean souled. 
They fear not love even though it be passionate love, but they 
fear only to have their love played with and mistreated by 
human beasts who know not the meaning of anything, much 
less of love. Therefore I say unto you I honor strength even 
as you do. And I recognize that strength in any form is good. 
When therefore, ye say to me, I have only the strength of a 
clean brute, I say you have the basis of all wisdom and all 
beauty and all grace. You need but to convert your strength 
of gross form into strength of fine forms and you will not be 
able to recognize your own self in your own mirror. For I say 
to you that all strength is good if it be strength and not bluff. 
The bluff that passes for strength is a silly and piteous farce 
which imposes on none but cowards. Therefore speaking to 
thee as men, I say: I know thee down to the core of thy hearts 
and to the bottom of thy shoes. And when thou shalt turn in 
thy fine manliness and say: Why, 'tis too late, pal, to do any- 
thing for me, I am only the dregs and the remnants of a man. 
I might have been decent once. Then I will answer thee and 
say, We will save the remnants. And in thy surprise thou shalt 
cry out and say: What! Me! Save me! And I will answer 
once more, looking thee straight in the eyes as men do who 
say that they mean: Yea! we will save the remnants, you and 
I. We will save the remnants. Then I will take thee quietly 
by the arm and we will go away by ourselves and talk the situa- 
tion over carefully in order to see what is best to be done and 
in what manner. For I say unto you that when you despair of 
yourselves, you men who dare fight and take your licking and 

65 



then rise to fight again, I say you know not what you do. For 
thy soul and the soul of every man on earth is worth the fighting 
for. The soul can never become so corrupted by the flesh or 
degraded by the physical senses but that it is worth fighting 
for. So hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, you and I, 
Brother, will start to fight this minute for the greatest thing 
ever created by the Living God for the glory and the honor of 
His world; and the greatest thing in the world is the soul of a 
real man. Therefore, my Brother, I will put my arms around 
you and tell you the plain and literal truth. I care not how 
often we fight and are whipped; I care not how often we fight 
and fall; I care not how long nor how hard the battle is, I say 
that in the end we will win. For the man who keeps fighting 
must win. There is no other possible end of any battle but that 
the man who fights the longest and never gives up must possess 
the battlefield. It is only yellow curs, who putting their tails 
between their legs dejectly creep away, — only such folks ever 
lose. But the man who stands erect and fights and keeps fight- 
ing to the end must win. For God loves a fighter. 

Therefore I say unto you, ye strong and vigorous men of 
the world: ye mariners, ye coal diggers, ye miners of gold and 
silver and copper and tin and coal and of all other metals and 
precious things that lie in the earth, ye lumbermen of the north- 
ern woods where the sunlight sifting down through the thick 
trees resembles twilight, I say I am with you and I want you 
to be with me in mind as thou art with me in soul. Yea ! Thou 
art with me though thou knowest it not. 

For I say unto you I know what you are and I am going to 
share what I have to share with you. I am not going to bore 

66 



you with pious prayers nor meekly beseech you to come unto 
the Lord without delay. I say unto thee come or not as it 
pleaseth thee; Curse or blaspheme as it suits thee. Thou mayst 
take the name of thy Lord in vain. Thou mayst do all manner 
of deviltry to prove that thou art boss of thy ranch, and the 
king-pin of thy alley and the whole thing in thy section of the 
country and when at last thou art through, I will quietly come 
and speak one word to thee, and thou wilt listen. Then I again 
will speak another word quietly and calmly in thy ear, looking 
thee meanwhile squarely in the eye. And again thou shalt 
listen. A third time will I speak and a third time wilt thou 
listen. And when I am through I will softly bless thee and go 
away. When I am gone thou shalt look around bewildered 
and astonished and raising thy strong right arm thou shalt gaze 
up into the face of the blue sky and thou shalt break into a 
rough and mighty oath, saying: By God, there is a man who 
has something to say and knows how to say it. He is onto his 
job. And from that minute, Brother, I say unto thee that the 
remnants are saved, — the remnants of the man whom God 
first made thee to be. For a man fights when he knows that 
one friend in the world believes in him, even unto the end. 
And I, brother, am the friend who believes in thee and in thy 
manhood and in thy honor, for I know that nothing in this 
universe is ever lost, not a star or a blade of grass, or a flower 
or any beast in the fields or any fish in the sea, much less the 
soul of a man like thee. 



67 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Now I say unto you that every man who would like to 
deserve the name of a man must honor women, and in order to 
honor them aright he must understand them and their needs. 
And the father must teach the boy to reverence little girls and 
not to take advantage of them at the critical period of their 
lives, when God is preparing them to be the mothers of a race. 
And I say that any man who looks at and who flirts with and 
who tries to have intercourse with another woman while his 
wife is bearing a child or about to bear a child or who has just 
borne a child is a devil incarnate and he shall be punished. And 
I say to him that he is trying to kill his own child before it is 
born. For no child can be well born who receives not the care 
of both father and mother. And the first care is to see that the 
mother's mind and heart and soul are at peace. But no 
woman's mind or heart or soul can be at peace so long as she 
has any cause — even the remotest and apparently the most 
innocent cause — to suspect or to doubt the fidelity and entire 
devotion of her husband, the father of her child. And if a 
woman's mind and heart and soul are not at peace her body 
cannot be at peace and therefore her child cannot be well born. 
And I say unto you that all children have the right to be well 
born. Being well born is the first and foremost right of every 
person. Therefore society and written law should enforce that 
right. Now a man should care for a woman judiciously, not 

68 



pet her foolishly or smother her with kisses she does not want, 
or attentions she does not need. Women are not dolls or play- 
things, but the God given mates of man, without whom men 
are merely brutes. Women must be given respect. That is 
their first right. And good women must be given honor. That 
is their second right. And all mothers — wedded or unwedded 
—must be given reverence and the unquestioning assistance 
that is due all Motherhood. For when a woman becomes a 
mother every living man whosoever he be is bound to honor, 
respect and assist her. Therefore if you respect yourself and 
would obey your God, honor every woman who is a mother. 
For such is the Law. I say unto you that I have lived as a man 
and I have sinned as a man and it was by sins that I have grown 
strong, — not by keeping them and coddling them but by fight- 
ing against them. For day by day and hour by hour and inch 
by inch night and day I have fought. Always I have fought. 
I have fought for the integrity of my own soul and to know 
the Truth, the exact truth concerning all things in this world. 
I have not always won my battles. Sometimes I have fallen, 
yet I have risen to my feet and fought. Often I have been de- 
feated and have gone down before the wiles or the blows of my 
opponents or have been tripped up by the snares with which 
my unwary feet were beset. But always I have risen to my feet 
to fight — to fight for the purity and honor and integrity of my 
own soul and for the souls of my f ellowmen. For I say unto 
thee except for the love of thy f ellowmen, the pure and pas- 
sionate and generous and exalted love of thy f ellowmen, there 
is no true love in this world. CJkaJt&r-JfrgZ — 

I say unto you also that the so-called love of husband and 
wife is too often mere carnal passion and not love at all. Even 

69 



mother love may be and often is defiled to the level of the beasts, 
for it may be and not infrequently is mingled with the selfish- 
ness that is not love. For love is something more than to give 
thyself to thy own family and thy own friends whom thou 
hast seen and who smile upon thee and who are kind to thee 
and who do many things for thee, and who speak thee pleasant 
words that warm the soul and keep the heart alive. Love is 
the giving of thyself to the Unseen and the Unknown. Love 
is the giving of thyself unselfishly and with faith unto the 
service of them that need thee. And their need and not thy 
wishes shall determine the extent of thy giving. Furthermore, 
I say unto thee that every-day love, or what people call, and 
in their shortsightedness think is love, is often not love at all, 
but a subtle and refined and rarified form of mere physical at- 
traction and a form of carnal selfishness. Thus it is natural 
for a mother to kiss her babe and to feel its warm, chubby arms 
about her neck. And she cries out and says, O how I love my 
baby! O God, is there any love that is as pure and holy and 
good as mother love ! And I answer and say unto thee, Woman, 
thy tender affection is a beautiful thing to see. Thy joy over 
thy child is a gracious and a sweet and a winsome sight for 
men or for God to contemplate, and yet I say unto thee, such 
love is not properly love at all, for does not the lioness, and the 
cow and the mare have the main spring and the essential im- 
pulses of such love in their hearts also? 

However, supposing that the child whom thou holdest in 
thy arms is not thy own child but a foundling. Supposing it 
has been given to thee to care for temporarily or while the 
mother is out at work, and supposing that knowing thou must 
soon give up the child and never seen it again nor know the 

70 



kiss of its dimpled mouth and the soft caress of its chubby arms, 
then if thy heart still goes out in leaping ecstacy and joyfulness 
to do for and to serve and to pet such a child — that I say is love. 
For love is not giving where we may now or where we may 
hereafter receive a gift; love is not the bestowal of thyself upon 
thy own and upon the known. For love is always pure and 
unselfish. And wherein and insofar as there is selfishness, there 
is no love. Call thy emotion whatever it please thee but do not 
defile by false claims and by false reasoning or by false imagina- 
tion or by sophistry, the divinity of the word love. For love is 
only one thing, — thy unselfish service to thy f ellowman. And 
before any man can love and serve God, he must love and serve 
his f ellowman. For I tell thee now and warn thee now that 
I will accept no service and no praise and no hymns and no 
adoration from any man who does not love his fellows. For 
if ye do not love thy f ellowmen ye shall not and cannot love 
me. And if thou triest to love me first and not thy fellows 
first, I will scorn and reject and spurn thy so-called love, for 
it will not be love but pride. And Love is the Law. There is 
and has been and shall be no other Law. 



71 



CHAPTER XXV 

Furthermore, I say unto you that I will convert your 
churches into playhouses and your temples into dance halls. 
For it is better to amuse innocent and frolicsome and even noisy 
pagans than to breed smooth-tongued and lying hypocrits. Ye 
have allowed your churches to become the breeding places of 
hypocrits, therefore I will not destroy them but I will convert 
them into places of usefulness and of joy that therefore in good 
time they shall again become the temples of the Living God, 
and the meeting places of a worshipping and prayerful people. 
For without worship and prayer, ye shall not know the peace 
and goodness of your own souk, let alone the peace and good- 
ness of the world. For all things were born to be good. The 
corruption of the world came from the corruption of the heart 
of man, whose foulest lust is his lust for power, and whose 
greatest sin is his greed for gold. Therefore I say unto thee, 
unless ye fling away the lust for power and trample it under 
thy feet, and unless thou cease thy greedy grabbing and learn 
to know the Law of Love, thou shalt be confounded and utterly 
destroyed. That is, thy soul shall be destroyed. And what is 
a body without a soul? Even as an empty house which the in- 
habitants have deserted, the lights all out, the fire all ashes, the 
warmth and welcome gone, such is the human body without the 
soul. 

Now into the churches shall come modest music and mirth- 
ful but seemly dancing, and thy temples shall resound with the 

72 



blithesome laughter of innocent children. And I will show thee 
that joy is divine and mirth is divine and laughter is divine, 
and all wholesome and generous and real human sociability is 
divine. Ye shall cease to worship me with long and solemn 
faces for such have become the faces of hypocrits and the Phari- 
sees and such are the faces of those who hate and envy or de- 
spise their neighbors. Therefore, I say, leave solemnity and 
mourning and weeping and wailing unto the hypocrits who 
have earned and deserved such rewards. But I say unto you, 
henceforth the mark of the true Christian shall be as it always 
has been, the cheerfulness of a smiling face, and the laughter 
of a merry eye, and the rosy cheeks that come from a happy 
heart and a healthy soul. By these marks shall ye know them! 
For these cannot be imitated. But solemnity and seriousness 
and a low meekness and a quiet mildness and even a modesty 
of demeanor — all these may be imitated and therefore may be 
false and hypocritical. For doth not the wine-bibber and the 
reveller and the debaucher of woman arise in the morning wear- 
ing a most solemn and serious and pensive air? And if you 
miss the look of his bleary and bloodshot eye, — nay! even his 
eye may remain clear until he has grown old in the ways of sin 
^ — you will in gazing upon such a man be very apt to say: — 
What a nice and quiet fellow. How serious and sober and sensi- 
ble he looks ! Therefore I say unto you that a reveller and the 
worst of sinners may assume virtues which they have not, under 
the cloak of seriousnes and soberness and quiet modesty. Nay! 
there be men suffering from the stomachache or from the tooth- 
ache who will look most pious and prayerful though they be 
cursing under their breath. So I say that whereas some good 
and proper things may be imitated, some other things — the 

73 



divinest things — no man can imitate. Thus true joy and the 
light and airy step of healthy youth and the genial smile of an 
innocent soul and the hearty laughter of a pure heart — these 
things cannot be imitated. Therefore I say unto you I will make 
them the marks of a true Christian. And I say unto you, Be 
not afraid of unseemly levity. Joy knoweth its own. For joy 
is kind and joy is modest and joy is clean and joy is blithesome 
and joy alone knoweth the meaning of the word moderation. 
Only the natural impulses that have been suppressed by Ascetic- 
ism and false living — these alone ye need to fear. But the 
fierce outburst of long imprisoned flesh and blood shall have 
and does have no relation and no resemblance to clean and pure 
and innocent joy. 



74 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Therefore, I say unto ye, beware of Aceticism for it is the 
parent of all unnatural vices, of all dictatorial and tyrannic 
authority, of pride and of all mental and moral brutality and 
brutal ambition and of all secret licentiousness and sin; of all 
the hypocrisy and humbug and greed that has been in the world 
from the beginning. Asceticism is the greatest enemy of man- 
kind. Therefore, I say unto you that all nuns of the Catholic 
Church shall leave their nunneries and go forth to become nor- 
mal and healthy and wholesome women. They shall marry and 
take husbands and bear children. If they have babies they shall 
marry the fathers of their children. And if they have a sweet- 
heart or lover, they shall marry their sweetheart or lover and 
shall live decently according to the Law. And the priests of the 
Catholic Church shall leave their confessionals which are 
against my Law and in defiance of my Word. For the con- 
fessional was established by shrewd men to perpetuate their 
power and not to spread my Word, the Word of the Lord, thy 
God. Therefore I say unto you that the confessional as part 
of the practice of the Catholic Church shall be abolished for it 
is against my Law, — the Law of the Living God. And the 
priests also shall marry as they did in the early days, before 
theology came to corrupt religion and before my Word, which 
is of the Spirit, was denied by the materialism which is of the 
flesh. For all the splendor of fine churches and costly orna- 
ments and golden crucifixes and swinging lights — all this is 

75 



materialism and gross and therefore an abomination to the 
eyes of the Lord. Therefore these things shall be abolished. 
And the pretended and insolent power of the so-called Pope, 
that also shall be abolished. For I say unto you that I, the 
Living God, never delegated my power to anyone. But I send 
one man there and he goeth. I call another man here and 
he cometh. But my power and authority I have never given 
or delegated to anyone. And whosoever says that 1, the Liv- 
ing God, who created the Heavens and the earth and who 
breathed the breath of life into every living thing, have ever 
delegated my authority to any mortal man or to any set of 
mortal men or that I shall hereafter delegate my authority to 
any man or to any set of men is a liar and a falsifier and a 
thrower of dust into the eyes of the people. And I say to you 
that the higher the sinner, the greater the fall and the greater 
the deception, the deeper the damnation. For I say again that 
I am the Living God who knoweth and seeth and under- 
standeth the hearts of his children and that I will not be gain- 
said. I will not have my laws juggled with or my decrees 
tampered with or my commands violated or changed even unto 
the smallest essential point thereof. Therefore I say unto you, 
all pretenders must go. But let them go in peace. Harm 
them not for they were foolish and did not understand. 

But the day cometh when all pretense shall be as chaff 
before an hurricane. For pretense is one of the foundation 
stones for injustice and cowardice and tyranny and wrong. 
And pretense can only maintain itself by constantly increasing 
injustice and by fouler wrongs, by secret murders, by assas- 



sinations and midnight crimes. CrW,kT& & JfkTi 



What now are pretenses and what are meant thereby? 

76 



A pretense is a claim to do or to be what thou canst not do 
and canst not be, or in other words, a pretense is a full and 
complete promise which is given to cover a partial perform- 
ance. For instance, a scholar, who cannot arise in a public 
assembly and make a clear statement of the gist of what he 
thinks and knows about the world in which he lives is no true 
scholar but only part of a scholar, the other part being a pre- 
tender. For knowledge to be real and useful must be alive 
and capable of explicit statement in clear terms so that men 
may comprehend. Now I say that long explanations are abom- 
inations and that most of the big and bulky commentaries are 
mere intellectual lumber that ought to be put into the bonfire 
and burned up. Men were not created by God to be placid 
indexes to dull books, but virile, vigorous and live men, keen 
and active to know and to maintain the Truth as they see it. 
There is only one proper place to study, — and that is under the 
open sky with God's world around and God's eye upon you. 
No man gets into crotchets or hobbies or half truths who 
touches the good soil with his feet and breathes the good air 
with his lungs. For sanity of mind and poise of soul and sym- 
pathy of heart come from knowing and seeing and daily wor- 
shipping the great universe which God made beautiful. With- 
out the interfusing and interpenetrating sense of beauty all 
knowledge is and must be incomplete. And no man can get 
a sense of beauty unless he goes where beauty is; that is, 
under the open sky and beneath the glow of the over-arching 
heavens. 

Now I say that parents often corrupt the minds of their 
own children. To talk of money and worldly ambition and 
low shrewdness before growing children is worse than as if 

77 



the parents sent their boy to a den of robbers to learn morals 
and their daughter to a house of ill-fame to study modesty. 
In a million richly appointed and beautiful homes today the 
demoralization and corruption of the minds of children goeth 
on by parents, who having eyes, see not. I say unto you that 
the defilement of the minds of children must cease. They are 
born with high ideals and clean minds, and all thy worldly 
scheming talk is worse than poisoned mud thereon. Now mud 
is known as mud and therefore will in time be cleaned away. 
But evil and worldly minded and materialistic talk is taken as 
parental wisdom by innocent children, who, looking up in rev- 
erence to their parents, naturally suppose that they know. 
Therefore I say, Suffer the little children to come unto me that 
I may keep their minds pure. Grown up people need one 
thing more than all other things, and that is to study idealism 
and the beautiful thoughts of little children. While parents 
are teaching mere technical details to their children, they 
should seek to learn wisdom from their children. But they 
need not praise or flatter their darlings nor tell their neighbors 
how clever their children are. That also is an evil which will 
lead to greater evils. But children being fresh from God have 
a wisdom that is fresh from God. The children know it not, 
but the parents should know and study it. Children know what 
is right and wrong often far better than their parents. For 
instance, a boy who takes an apple out into the playground 
and begins to eat it without offering his playmates and school- 
mates a bite, and just as big a bite as he takes is called mean 
and stingy and his comrades will no longer play with him. 
But many a grown man doing practically the same thing, be- 
comes a prominent and rising citizen, whose money saves him 

78 



from criticism. And herein is shown one of the few evil re- 
sults that come from man's association with women. Many a 
man becomes stingy or harsh or ungenerous to his fellows 
through the serpent-like suggestion of his wife, who selfishly 
thinks she will get less if a man's comrades get more. Her 
maternal care for her children often makes her over-cautious 
and over-prudent, and even when a woman's children no 
longer require her care, a woman often continues to dwarf the 
soul of a man, by pretending that she needs luxuries which 
only defile her and take away her womanhood. So that in the 
end a man makes a doll out of his wife and a nurse maid out of 
himself in caring for the doll. All this is done in the name of 
and under the pretense of Love. Therefore again I say unto 
you: Beware of how ye corrupt the meaning of the word 
love. The married woman who under cover of the marriage 
bond teases or coaxes her husband into licentiousness and 
into vices is no better, nay! not so good as a street walker. For 
the street walker is known for what she is. But the married 
woman pretends to be virtuous. The little hypocrit! I say 
unto you that the man who has intercourse with his wife 
when she is about to bear a child or has just borne a child is 
a brute, and that he corrupts his unborn child and injures the 
mind and body of his offspring. O this earth could be like to 
Heaven if no vice were ever practiced under the so-called holy 
estate of matrimony! Again ye see how good and true things 
may be corrupted by hypocrisy and the pretense of virtue in 
thy daily life. To have clean-minded children, the father and 
mother must be clean-minded. Ye cannot gather figs from 
thistles. Therefore I say, be clean of mind that ye may be vir- 
tuous of body. 

79 



THE SONG OF PATIENCE 

He sealed my lips; he shut my mouth; 

My Lord and God, the Living. 
I looked to North; I looked to South,' — 

O for a task of giving. 
'Twas thus I cried unto the Night 
Upon my heart there lay a blight; 
I could not work; I could not write; 
Then from the left; then from the right, 
A voice replied of Love, not Hate, — 
Thy task, Beloved, is to wait, 
To wait! wait! wait! 
Thy task, Beloved, is to wait! 

2. 
How long, O Lord, must this endure? 
How can I know and thus be sure, 
My task may all unbidden lie, 
And I sink down unknown and die. 
How shall I know the hour and day, 
When thou shalt come to me and say,— 
With words I long to feel and see: — 
Arise, my son, and follow me? 
Then unto me all soft and low, 
There came this answer: You will know: 
I cannot tell, but trust in me, 

80 



The hour will come and you shall see; 

You will know; I will be there, 

And arm thy soul to do and dare. 

But now behind thy quiet gate 

Thy task, Beloved, is to wait! 

To wait! wait! wait! 

Thy task, Beloved, is to wait. 



81 



CHAPTER XXVII 

I say unto you that modern advertising is a moral crime, 
and that all advertising men are sinners both in the sight of 
God and of their own conscience. For advertising tends to be- 
come a fake and a handmaid of Fakers and hence an associate 
of wrong and an upholder of Injustice and Tyranny. That is 
why in the business world of the Nineteenth Century adver- 
tising so flourished — because the thieves and robbers and ras- 
cals found they could use it to their advantage. I say to you 
that if one good man has been made rich through advertising, 
twenty rascals have been made richer. Look at the patent 
medicine manufacturers and the dishonest mining promoters! 
Advertising stands in the way of merit and good deserving. 
Whatever is worthy and meritorious will commend itself with- 
out words, both to the eyes of the Lord and to the eyes of all 
men — provided it is given a fair chance. But no man has a 
chance to be heard in the market place while the noisy haran- 
gues of the hypocrit and the smooth-tongued wooings of the liar 
and the specious pleadings of the gentle and foxy faker arise 
on every hand. Because good men think and believe in adver- 
tising and because it seems that every business man is forced 
to use that method to keep up with his competitors, still that 
does not make the wrong right. I ask every man to ask his 
soul whether if he doeth a good deed he desireth to advertise 
it? If therefore it is wrong or immodest to advertise the best 
things about thee, is it therefore right to advertise lesser and 

82 



worse things? If a man wishes to hire a carpenter or a stone- 
mason and he go to the public square and at sight of him and 
his apparent need of help, a hundred men rush forward clam- 
oring with loud cries: We can do thy work! We are skilled 
workmen, then the hundred and first man who may be more 
skilled and more fit for the place than any of the others shall 
not have a fair chance to secure the work to which he is en- 
titled because of his superior skill if he stand with quiet dignity 
in his place, because he will not be seen. But I say that real 
ability confers real dignity upon any man who possesses it and 
furthermore, the mere possession of ability entitles its posses- 
sor to consideration on the part of all men. For the master 
workman has the right to abide in his place with dignity and 
serenity of countenance. But when the clamorous crowd of 
second rate workmen rushed forth the man who needs a skilled 
man shall be forced to choose from among the crowd of boast- 
ers, while all the time the man who is wanted may stand just 
out of sight, alone and unheard. And he is unheard because 
the noisy crowd have obscured him from view. He has simply 
abided in his place at the post of duty to which God has ap- 
pointed him. I say unto you that each man of merit has a 
right to stand at his post of duty and of service with dignity, 
and in silence abiding his time. For the voices of the noisy and 
the clamorous and of the fakers cannot shut him out from the 
eyes of God nor from the eyes of any man who is persistent 
to have his work done by men who know. For knowledge 
seeks knowledge and ignorance herds with ignorance. And 
the tragedy of life comes when ignorance shall temporarily 
obscure by its clamorous pretenses the merit that abides pa- 
tiently at its post of duty. 

83 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

I say unto you that no teacher and no preacher; no prophet 
and no revealer of the truth; no leader who would lead and no 
guide who would show the way shall ever be able to do his 
work and the work of God, the Father, who requires his service 
except that he knows men. For without accurate and definite 
and intimate knowledge nothing can be accomplished. There- 
fore I say to all who aspire to be or think they are leaders or 
prophets or guides or teachers unto their fellow-men, ye must 
know. And your knowledge must be full and accurate. But 
the most difficult and the most intricate of all learning is to 
learn to know the inner part of man. Yet unless ye possess 
such knowledge, ye shall only harm and not help your fellow. 

For of all vain pretenses, the most vain is to pretend to 
know what thou dost not know. The only way to attain is to 
seek and to keep seeking after knowledge which is the mental 
and moral and spiritual light of the world. Without light the 
world lies in darkness. Now to have knowledge of men ye must 
eat with them and drink with them and make merry with 
them. You must help bury their dead and help receive their 
babies into the society of thy kind. Thou must rejoice in the 
marriage of their daughters and give prayers for the right mat- 
ing of their sons. Thou must fight side by side and shoulder to 
shoulder with them and thou must, if need be, revel with them, 
or if not thou must watch their revellings with sympathy and 

84 



pity, not with contempt or disdain. For without sympathy 
there is and can be no knowledge. Without sympathy the 
mother shall not know the heart of her own daughter nor the 
daughter know the heart of her mother. Without sympathy 
the father shall fail to see and to appreciate the nature of and 
the abilities of his own son. Without sympathy the son shall 
not be able to perceive or to appreciate the nobleness or fine- 
ness of character that lies beneath the plain and perhaps homely 
exterior of his own father. Therefore I say ye must have and 
must use sympathy in all thy dealings with thy fellow-men. 
Else shalt thou be hard and cruel and unjust and scornful and 
hypocritical and tyrannical. 

For Sympathy holds the key both to Justice and to Mercy. 
Without sympathy the virtuous wife shall let her husband 
perish of neglect because she did not understand. Without 
sympathy even the chaste man may let his beautiful young 
wife starve and fade away for the want of company and of 
right human companionship. Therefore I say unto you: — Be 
sympathetic. Try to see life from another point of view be- 
sides thy habitual point of view. Sympathize but do not be 
weepy or tearful or solemn or sad. Sympathy must be fine 
and keen and high and clear and swift to perceive and silent in 
order to cultivate its perceptions aright. For I say to you that 
sympathy is the basis of all the Justice and Joy and Happiness 
of human life. 



H5 



CHAPTER XXIX 

First of all I say unto you, Ye must be honest. Yet no 
man can be made honest or kept honest by rules. Only the 
conscience within shall ever be able to make or keep any man 
honest. Therefore has it come to pass that wherever the con- 
sciences of men are dulled they have become dishonest and 
dishonorable — a piteous sight in the eyes of God, and a loath- 
some sight unto their own eyes. For I say unto you that in 
order to be honest, ye must render service according to thy 
ability and whoso does not render service according to his 
ability but only according to some barren rules is a dishonest 
man. I say unto thee that in so far as in thee lies thou shalt 
work, not with thy muscles alone but with thy heart and thy 
soul and thy mind, for thy heart and thy soul and thy mind 
are more important than thy muscles. Therefore in thy daily 
labor if thou lea vest out the most important things needed for 
real labor how canst thou call thyself honest? I speak unto thy 
Conscience, for thy Conscience knoweth the Law. When I 
gave unto thee a Conscience I gave unto thee a knowledge of 
the Law. Again I say unto thee, thou must use the faculties 
and abilities given to thee, for without use all things are in 
danger of rust and decay. Now I say unto thee that thy heart 
and mind and soul working in harmony and with enthusiasm 
to promote thy work are all necessary for the production of 
the good will that is needed in all labor. For without good will, 
nothing can be rightly done on the earth or in the heavens. 

86 



Therefore I say unto thee that unless a man put good will into 
his work he is not an honest man. For no man can be honest 
who goes about his daily labor leaving out the best that is in 
him. Wherefore, to be called honest, thou must work not only 
diligently but with good will and enthusiasm over thy daily 
task. For without good will and enthusiasm no true service 
can be rendered. I say furthermore that thou shalt stick to the 
task that is set to thee and do thy level best so long as thou 
shalt labor at all. The laborer shall not stop and lean on his 
shovel the minute he thinks the boss is not looking. The clerk 
shall not drop his pen or shove it jauntily over his ear and turn 
to flirt with the pretty typewriter girl the minute his employer 
steps out of the office. The typewriter girl shall not stop and 
write a note on her machine to some gentleman friend when- 
ever she thinks that no eye is watching her. But I say unto 
her that the eye of God is upon her always. The maid servant 
shall not drop her work to gossip or to flirt with or to kiss on 
the sly the butcher boy or the ice man or the messenger boy 
who comes to deliver a bundle. For whoso wastes time for 
which he is paid is dishonest and he must amend. I speak to 
thy conscience for it knows the Law. I say further that this 
applies to all other men in all other walks of life who do not 
render the service for which they are paid. I say that any 
ruler such as the President of the United States of America 
who runs about the country campaigning while he is in office, 
and who is out doors fixing up his political fences while he 
should be indoors doing the work which the people pay him to 
do is not an honest man nor a proper ruler. Furthermore I 
say unto you that any such President who runs about the coun- 
try talking and speechifying and banqueting when he should 

87 



be in Washington at work is a dishonest man, whose dishon- 
esty corrupts the entire life of the nation. The vicious exam- 
ple of one such man shall serve to sway from the right path 
thousands of young men. Then woe unto the leaders in high 
places who are not only dishonest themselves but bad exam- 
ples to all their followers! Again I say unto you that any 
Senator or Representative of the people who is not strictly 
honest is a curse and menace to his country. The bad example 
of dishonest leaders in high places shall be a curse and a blight 
unto any nation. The leader who conscientiously swerves one 
inch from the path which his conscience points out to him 
shall not only be accursed of God but he shall in time lose his 
influence and his power and shall fade away from the sight and 
remembrance of his fellows, unhonored and unknown. For 
the penalty of dishonesty is and shall be mental and moral and 
spiritual death. Such is the Law. So it has been from the 
beginning and so it shall be to the end. Look into the eye and 
the face of a dishonest man and see what ravages the inner 
corruption makes upon the outer features. A dishonest man 
hateth himself and therefore does his face grow hard and 
seamed and gross and flabby. For many are the outward rav- 
ages and markings made by our wronged consciences, but all 
the markings made by any vice are ugly. What I have said 
of a few types of men applies to all men. It is not necessary 
to make the applications. That will be done by the conscience 
of each individual man who reads these words. For the con- 
science of each man knows the Law. And since each man 
knows the Law he must obey the Law or he will receive his 
own condemnation, which is the most severe judgment that 
any man can receive. For I say unto you that the condemna- 

88 



tion of the most severe Judge is never equal in harsh and 
merciless severity to the judgment which each man passes 
upon himself the minute he doeth wrong. Therefore I say 
unto all men, Obey your consciences if ye would be honest or 
happy. For thou knowest the Law, and knowing thou must 
obey. 



89 



CHAPTER XXX 

The laws of God are few and simple* The words of God 
are swift and brief. Words hinder action. Words confuse 
thoughts. Words bungle. And most explanations do not 
explain. A man wading through a long discourse resembles 
a traveler trying to follow a narrow trail through a jungle. He 
is more apt to be lost than to be found. And least of all shall 
he be able to find himself. Therefore be careful of entering 
into any jungle of words lest thou be confused and thy thoughts 
be lost. When men are children they must be given childish 
directions and explanations. And all directions and explana- 
tions require words. But to the trained mind of the trained 
soldier at any post of duty in the domain of human life, the 
general in command says go! and he goeth. Come! and he 
cometh. Do! and he doeth. Therefore wisdom and action 
need few words. The early sacred writings of China and India 
and of the Jews were lengthy, because explanations to races 
who had not as yet outgrown their childhood, were needed. 
But the greatest reason of their length is that men bungled and 
added to what God said. Even in the New Testament Christ's 
words are not infrequently added to and bungled up in the 
adding. Moreover, there are chapters and parts of chapters 
that are put in as padding, just as the modern newspaper writer 
having a good story spoils the vigor of it by padding it out to 
fill up the required space. 

90 



CHAPTER XXXI 

But I say unto you that the time for bungling is past. 
Men are now at a period in which they may cast away the 
superstitions and the bungled words and the corrupted inven- 
tions of their fairy tale age and receive the truth straight from 
the shoulder and clear to the heart. The day has passed when 
the leaders shall do the thinking for the people. The people 
must think for themselves. And in order to think for them- 
selves men and women must not be bowed down and must not 
reel staggering under a load of work that others may be lazy. 
Therefore I give you the greatest Commandment of the com- 
ing centuries, viz: No man and no woman and no child shall 
labor for more than six hours a day for six days in the week. 
Bankers keep their hours from 10 o'clock in the morning until 
three o'clock in the afternoon. And are not the bankers the 
most prosperous part of every community? As bankers have 
learned how to live in ease and comfort by handling the peo- 
ple's money, I say unto you that the People must learn how to 
increase their comfort by using the knowledge of and the 
shrewdness of the bankers. If five hours of daily labor is 
enough for the prosperous banker, why may it not be sufficient 
also to insure the prosperity of the People? Better for use than 
good money is a good idea, for good ideas make good money. 
Why then, throw away the good idea of anyone, even of a 
banker? He does not refuse to handle at a profit thy good 
money. Why shouldst thou refuse to or omit to profit by his 

91 



good ideas which are more valuable than money? For one 
good idea can make a million dollars, but no million dollars 
has ever or shall ever succeed in making one idea. Therefore 
I say unto you, do not neglect to observe and watch the ways 
of bankers. And be not so foolish as to neglect Wisdom, no 
matter whence it cometh. 



92 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Now I say unto you that God hates a lie and a liar. For 
lies poison the air and carry contagion and death and disease 
and sorrow and shame and humiliation to the ends of the earth. 
Thou shalt not lie! Lay down thy book now and reflect for 
five minutes on the meaning of those four little words, Thou 
shalt not lie. A lie is living poison and foul contagion. Thou 
dost not believe what I say now, but thou shalt believe. Wait 
and listen. I have said unto you that all the holy books of the 
past have been tampered with by designing priests and so- 
called ministers of God for their own selfish purposes, in order 
that they might maintain their authority over the people. They 
have fixed up stories that are not fit for the understanding 
of a twelve-year-old child, and yet they boldly and brazenly 
ask that such stories be believed because they are in the 
Holy Book, and men must believe in the Holy Scriptures. 
Thus they have asked and demanded and compelled decent 
men and women and truth-seeking children to believe false- 
hoods because such falsehoods would serve, they thought, better 
than the truth to bolster up and to foster and to maintain 
ecclesiastical authority and the influence of the so-called 
ministers of God. But I say unto you that God, the Living 
God, hates all liars, but he hates most of aU theological liars 
who have helped for fifty thousand years to keep in the 
slavery of ignorance the souk of men. I say unto you that 
men — all men — were born to be free and that they shall 

93 



be free. For such is the Law. And in order that the 
souls of men shall he free, all theological humbug and 
lying and falsehood must go. Throw it into the ash heaps 
of the world for dogs to sniff at. Ye need not do it even rev- 
erendly, for there is no reverence to be given to the lies that 
have been bred in high places, and what place is higher than 
the Temple of God. When humbug goes even the thieves and 
robbers and so-called rascals of the world shall raise their heads 
like men and say: There is a chance. We will be good. It 
is worth while trying to be good when things are on the square. 
Now perhaps the most odious and the most vicious lie ever re- 
corded for the credence of men occurs in the New Testament, 
the most beautiful and most truthful and the wisest of all the 
books ever written, because it contains the words and teachings 
of Jesus; albeit those words and teachings have been bungled 
and in some places perverted. Now in all of the holy writings 
before the coming of Jesus, in all countries there had been 
tampering and fixing-up by priests and so-called ministers. It 
was an ancient custom that had grown from earlier and more 
savage times. The witch doctor of the wandering tribes shook 
his rattle and made up his stories as he pleased, speaking one 
true word and then two false ones. Seeing how easily the cre- 
dulity of unthinking people could be imposed on, the custom on 
the part of the priests continued when the people began to be less 
credulous. The custom of theological humbug is perhaps the 
most ancient of all surviving customs. It survived because it 
was so carefully protected by both priests and people. When 
customs are so long and so firmly established, it is hard to 
break them. Any man who tries to break up a long established 
religious custom in any nation at any time signs his own death 

94 



warrant. And no man likes to sign his own death warrant, 
it being hard enough to have somebody else sign it. Thus evil 
customs survive and flourish. And the longer they survive 
and the longer they flourish, the more evil they become. That 
is why it was possible for the men coming after and spreading 
the teachings of Jesus, the Truth-speaker, to foist upon the 
world an odious lie in regard to His birth and parentage. Now 
all that is said about the poverty of the childhood of Christ is 
true. And all that is said about the boyhood of Christ and of 
his disputing with the learned men in the temple is true. 
Though his arguments were merely considered as the clever 
effort of a precocious boy. The wisdom of what Jesus then 
said practically made no impression because he was a boy. 
Wisdom must be duly tagged and labeled before men will 
receive it. 

But the story of the Magi coming to greet the newly born 
babe is not true. For if it had been true it would not have 
taken thirty years of the life of Christ for him to get started 
on His real mission. The mission of Christ lasted four years, 
and He did not start until He was thirty years old, because it 
took practically a lifetime for him to win over even a handful 
of people to believe in Him. For people were just as unbeliev- 
ing then as they are today. People are unbelieving because 
they do not understand the meaning of what is true. They do 
not think. They bow to the authority of so-called thinkers. 
Intellectual men are very apt to be shrewd men who would 
like to keep up the fiction that only a few men are fit to think 
for and lead their fellows. Now Christ came into the world 
obscure, lived a lowly and obscure life, and although He had a 

few friends who saw that there was something about Him 

95 



which was different from other young men, what that some- 
thing was they could not tell. For the poor son of an obscure 
carpenter would have had at no time the proper recognition for 
the wisdom he possessed. For wisdom coming from a beggar 
does not sound the same as the identical wisdom would sound 
if uttered in a fine cathedral by a grey-haired and reverend 
looking priest clad in flowing robes. Nay! wisdom uttered by 
a beggar might land him in the town jail as being a dangerous 
citizen, while the same words uttered in the same spirit from 
a pulpit might double the priest's salary as a testimonial to 
the uplifting and inspiring influence of a pure and pious heart. 
So Jesus wandered obscure and lonely for almost a life- 
time, more obscure and more lonely than any Christian today 
dreams of. 



96 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

Now the birth of Christ was not a miracle as men con- 
sider such things. Yet it was a greater wonder for the sight 
of men and more instructive to the souls of men than any 
miracle that had been performed up to that time. But it was 
a different kind of event, a more wonderful and more spiritual 
fact than the dull brains of the brightest priests of those days 
could conceive of, and even if they had tried to imagine it, 
they would not have been able to fully understand it. Mary, 
the mother of Jesus, was not a virgin when he was born. She 
was a virgin when He was conceived and the conception was 
as natural as that of any other child. Mary was a sweet and 
trusting and confiding and emotional and dreamy girl, and like 
other such girls she knew not the meaning of sin. She loved 
and was loved by a young priest of the temple where she went 
to worship, and who when he found that she would become a 
mother said to her in agony and contrition of Spirit, Mary, 
we are one in the sight of God. Then come and marry me and 
proclaim me as thy wife before all men, said Mary, the in- 
nocent and unworldly minded maiden, who like other innocent 
maidens give all to the man they love. But the young priest 
shrank back, saying, "It is against the rules of our religious 
order to marry; how can I?" But Mary answered him and 
said, "What mean such rules to us who love? They were not 
made for lovers." Then the young priest sadly bowed his 
head and in the agony of his soul, for he loved Mary, answered 

97 



her, — "Nay, but if I married thee, I would not only lose my 
position here in the temple, but they would put me to death." 

With a cry of horror Mary flung herself into his arms, cry- 
ing, "To death?" "Yea," answered the young priest, his fine 
face writhing in agony, "they will put me to death. Though 
I fear not death, they will put me to death just the same, and 
we shall be separated." Mary wiped away her tears, and smil- 
ing, said, "I could not live now if thou wert dead." Then the 
young priest said, "We have sinned through ignorance. I 
never would have taken vows if I had known that human 
hearts could hold such love as now and always I feel for thee. 
I must give thee up and thou must marry another man." 

"Aye, that is true. We must give each other up. But 
thou wilt keep me in thy heart and soul and mind, and thou 
wilt pray for me?" cried Mary eagerly. "Aye, night and day 
I will pray for our souls." Then falling on his knees he asked 
for her forgiveness in the sight of God. Placing her hand 
softly on his head that shook with sobs, Mary kissed him on 
the brow and went away. 

Joseph soon after sought her hand in marriage, for Mary 
was fair to look upon, a modest and a seemly girl. After much 
hard thinking and much wondering about the cruel laws that 
kill and smother up the souls and hearts of living men, Mary 
told Joseph all. And Joseph, out of his deep love for Mary, 
forgave her, and they were married. When some months had 
come and gone, then Jesus came, the Child of Love, for Mary 
wondering and from gratitude at Joseph's forgiveness and at 
the kindness of God to spare her the unspeakable defilement 
of the Jewish laws bore to the world a perfect child, a child 
conceived in love and reared in love and trained in love by the 

98 



grateful soul of one pure Mother. And Jesus so born and so 
conceived became the Light and Saviour of the World, because 
all those around Him tried to live the Law of Love. If any 
Law was broken there in Palestine, and surely the young priest 
broke the law, — the Law of Love, which is God's first and 
foremost law, that law was all fulfilled at least by Mary and by 
Joseph. And out of sin grew greater strength. For that also 
is the Law. 



99 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

Now, hark unto me all men, that I may let thee see and 
clearly see what may come from a lie; what blight may fall 
upon the earth unto the end of time as the result of a single 
falsehood. And remember that the great sin of the young 
priest was not to have loved a young girl with a pure and 
manly love that filled her soul and body and mind and heart, 
but his sin was having denied her the fulfillment of that love by 
a plighting of faith and a marriage before and in sight of all 
men. He should have resigned his position in the temple and 
have gone away to some far country where he and Mary could 
live in safety. Women know what is the fulfillment of the 
Law of Love, and men must heed woman's knowledge. What- 
soever law on earth stands in the way of and is an obstacle to 
the fulfillment of the Law of Love must go. For God is love, 
and without love, ye shall never know who or what God is. 
Therefore I say unto you that all celibacy and all priesthoods 
that omit or frown on or avoid the holy sacrament of marriage 
either for themselves or others, such a priesthood is false, 
and the members of such a priesthood are sinners and the abet- 
tors of sin. And I say that all sins must be abolished. 

I say unto you further that God's law demands sunshine 
and air and the open sky. The so-called love that lurks and 
hides and lingers and giggles and blushes and simpers in dark 
corners and in shady nooks and in dusky lanes, and beneath the 
shadows of trees and bushes is not love at all, but the symptoms 

100 



of mere physical passion such as belongs to all beasts of the 
fields. Now whenever ye think that physical passion and love 
are identical, ye are as the blind leading the blind, and the Light 
and Knowledge of the Law is as yet hidden from you. There- 
fore I say unto you that all true love is open and free and beau- 
tiful and joyous and noble and clean. Whatsoever is not so is 
not love. For love is light and love is sunshine and love is joy. 
And God is love. Therefore seek ye to know and to honor 
love. Lie not about love nor falsify nor dare to dishonor it. 
Now it must be remembered that between the birth of Jesus 
and his setting out upon his mission thirty years elapsed. In a 
small community and among primitive people even gossip will 
go to sleep after thirty years, provided that nothing great occurs 
meanwhile to keep it awake. Now the country gossip over 
Mary and her misfortunes in not being able to marry the man 
she loved died down long before Jesus became known. Yet 
enough people were alive who knew the truth about Christ's 
parentage to let the knowledge go abroad. Thus the truth was 
known and talked over. It was finally put aside as being too 
dangerous to publish, because it was feared it might lead to 
greater laxity of morals among the people if such a human fact 
received a divine sanction. Also, it was thought it might pre- 
vent the spread of Christ's noble doctrines in case the people 
found out that their Lord and Saviour was not only of humble, 
but of what would seem to their ignorance and misunderstand- 
ing, as of dubious origin. Thus the apostles who were record- 
ing the sayings of Jesus decided to invent the story of the 
miraculous conception and of the Virgin Mary, leaving out all 
mention of the young priest's part, because the publishing of 
such a fact might put such a clear and definite case of priestly 

101 



weakness and the dangers of asceticism before the people, that 
priests thenceforth would have been obliged to have taken just 
as good care of their own morals as they are supposed to take 
of the morals of other people. Thus the fiction was started and 
a vicious falsehood set in motion. We may say that it was 
done with the best of intentions. Well, Hell is paved with 
good intentions, as you may have read. Now what happened? 
The immediate result was just as shrewd men had foreseen. The 
people were at first mystified and then delighted with their 
mysticism. They gulped down the story with the eagerness 
of a small boy who is in such a hurry to run out to play after 
school that he does not take time to masticate his piece of 
bread and butter, but swallows it whole, knowing he hath a 
sturdy digestion. The people thus took the story at one gulp, 
because mysticism rests the minds of lazy or tired or unthink- 
ing or overworked people. Mental twilight is soothing to the 
minds of some people even as a dark room is quieting to the 
nerves of babes and little children — they sleep better out of 
the glare. The blazing light of truth is too strong for eyes and 
for minds that need sleep. It is too stimulating. But all men 
need sleep who stuff their stomachs with too much food. For 
digestion waits on sleep since sleep bringeth good digestion. 
Now the beautiful and mystical story that by its beauty and its 
wonder seemed to thoughtless and to over-shrewd minds to 
justify the falsity of it became the cause of much religious 
ecstacy and likewise of much religious hypocrisy and of much 
human cruelty and wrong. Had the world been taught the 
actual truth, what mercy and gentleness would have sprung up 
in the minds of men toward all women who had trusted to 
men and been deceived, even as Mary was deceived! What 

102 



scorn of moral cowardice would have resulted! What adora- 
tion of the might and mystery of love under the most adverse 
conditions and what pity for women who love not wisely but 
too well would have come into the world! On the other hand 
what did that one lie do during the nineteen hundred and 
eleven years of its foul and sinful life? That one falsehood 
has turned thousands of innocent girls from their father's house 
into the cold night and into the colder day. That one false- 
hood has put the red hot brand of shame upon a million 
women's brows and let a million rascals walk the highways 
and the byways of the world unscathed and unrebuked. That 
lie has dragged down and kept ten million women to the level 
of the men whom they might have lifted up into the light and 
grace of true knowledge. That lie has left thousands of babies 
nameless because their fathers were too cowardly and because 
society was too immoral to make them do what their souls bid. 
Therefore I say unto you if so-called ministers of God could 
start and keep alive for nineteen hundred and eleven years a 
vicious wrong and sinful lie and take away the greatest human 
glory and lesson from the birth and the coming of Christ into 
the world, what other wrongs and fierce brutalities are not done 
by well intentioned lies. I say again, Beware of lies. For God 
demands of you first and foremost that ye shall speak the truth. 
For Truth is light, and before love comes to you truth must 
come and take you by the hand and lead the way. Honor thou 
the truth. That is also the Law. 



103 



CHAPTER XXXV 

Now I say unto all the Jews throughout the world, I have 
come to thee to lead thee out of bondage. Ye have suffered 
and ye shall be made strong. Ye have been persecuted and 
ye shall be made free. Ye have been spit upon and outraged 
and sneered at and been shunned and scorned, and I say unto 
you I will restore thy power. Ye shall be the leaders of the 
world again. But ye shall no longer hate or be hated. Ye shall 
no longer despise or be despised. Ye shall no longer stand 
apart from thy fellows, but thou shalt teach unto men what the 
world needs to know. Thou shalt leave thy money getting and 
show once more to the world of men the meaning of the word 
Jew, humbly and modestly, yet with the quiet pride due to a 
great race which has had a glorious past. But thou shalt no 
longer live upon the memories of thy past. Thou shalt go con- 
fidently into the future, unto greater power and glory and 
majestic triumphs than even the days of Solomon and Moses 
ever knew. For only suffering and humility can make a man 
or a nation great. Thou hast suffered; thou hast drank to its 
lees the bitter cup of life, and I say unto thee, the hour of thy 
deliverance is nigh. Thy women shall be careful to mate only 
with the best and cleanest men of other races. Thus shalt thou 
insure a vigorous and a virile progeny. Thy mothers shall 
bear many and virile children and thou shalt not fear to let thy 
daughters marry men of other races. But they shall marry 
only picked men of undeniable mental and physical power, who 

104 



have been approved by the Rabbis in the Synagogue. The 
Daughters of Israel shall remember that as women they are 
responsible for the future of a race. They are to be the re- 
vivers and restorers of a great people. Therefore they must 
be careful not only to bear as many children as possible, but 
they must be careful to see that each child is well born. They 
shall teach unto their husbands the meaning of the word love, 
which is chastity and moderation and self-control and loyalty. 
As the mothers of a great race which is about to renew its 
glories, the Jewish women must put off pride and vanity of 
dress and put on the dignity that becomes the women of God's 
chosen people. Be careful I say to be humble, and remember 
the days of thy persecution only to profit by them. Thou shalt 
remember that hate is futile and tyranny is foolish and that 
persecution is crime. Therefore, in the hour of thy triumph 
be humble. Thou shalt not go back to Palestine, for I who am 
come to lead thee shalt not be there. I am here where Liberty 
and Freedom beckon to every man who loveth Freedom and 
Justice and Light. Therefore I say unto thee, Arise, ye Jews! 
look up into the sky. Look down into thy hearts. For I tell 
thee that the hour which thou hast awaited for five thousand 
years has come at last. Unto thee, also, I bring this Gospel of 
Hope. 



105 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

To the worldly and ecclesiastical organization known as 
the Holy Catholic Church, I say: I shall send a David with a 
pebble to fight against thee, a Goliath, on the open field of 
battle. And the pebble which he shall fling against thee is the 
word Freedom. And thou shalt be sorely wounded unto death, 
and thou shalt not know it. Nay! thou shalt laugh in thy pride 
and say, What! be hurt by a mere pebble? Not I. But the peb- 
ble shall hit thee in thy most vulnerable part, — thy want of the 
love of Truth. And having once hit thee, the little wound will 
bleed until thy life blood shall all flow from thee and thy power 
shall die. It shall take time, because ignorant men shall flock 
to thee to succor thee from fear, not knowing or dreaming of 
thy weakness. Some from fear and some perchance out of the 
traditional love of the days when thou wert pure of heart and 
clean of body, shall minister to thee in thy dying hours, seeing 
in thee only a splendid spiritual giant and not the mere remnant 
of something which has once been. For if thou hadst retained 
the strength which God gave thee, the pebble of David would 
never have been hurled against thee and therefore would never 
have harmed thee. But thou must die and thou wilt die, 
mourned by thousands and derided by millions. For everyone 
who sheds a tear over thy dead body, there shall be ten who 
will curse thee in their hearts. For thy later days were filled 
with greed and tyranny and hypocrisy and ill deeds and oppres- 
sions and deceptions. The memories of the virtuous deeds of 

106 



thy youth shall never be able to wipe away the record of thy 
brutal manhood and thy evil old age. Thou hast become a pre- 
tender. Woe unto all pretenders ! I say. Of all pretense theo- 
logical pretense is the worst, and God will damn such pretense 
with everlasting damnation. For whoever drags down the holy 
things and denies the high things of God is no common sinner. 
He is an arch devil and must be punished accordingly. Not the 
dupes whom ye have deceived but even thy own self, thou 
brutal and evil Goliath, the so-called Holy Roman Catholic 
Church, thou shalt go to Hell with all thy Popes. 



107 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Now I say unto you that rich men are a menace to the 
community, and I say unto you also that poor men are a 
menace to the community. For rich men and poor men are 
both the product of one thing, Greed. The love of money is 
the root of all evil, I say those words again and I command 
you to repeat them until you understand them. The rich man 
having accumulated money tends to become brutal or tyran- 
nous or selfish. The poor man having failed to accumulate 
money tends to become envious or bitter or malignant. There- 
fore it is not good for any man to be too eager to possess much 
money. If the world was run aright, and if the hearts of men 
were right, there would be small need for money. Brotherly 
love and kindly feelings would freely render those services 
which now only money can buy. I say unto you that the man 
who will not work except he be paid in money, is no man at 
all, but only a human form of brute. For money represents 
only the animal that is the brute side of man's abilities. For 
cunning and shrewdness are both animal instincts, and all the 
qualities that go to make up the most successful merchants to- 
day are the refined forms of mere animalism, and because they 
are sugar-coated and dressed up, the instincts are not the less 
still there in all their primitive power and potency. I say to all 
the workers throughout the world, thou shalt render faithful 
and honest and loyal service. But no service is faithful and 
honest and loyal unless thy heart and thy mind and thy soul 

108 



are in it. Mechanical service is not properly true service at all, 
and if thou art asked or required to do such work thou shalt 
refuse, for God never made man to be a machine. Thou hast 
a heart and a soul and a mind as well as a body, and it is more 
important to care for thy heart and thy soul and mind than it is 
to care for thy body. It were better for thy body to die of 
starvation than that thy soul should die of starvation. There- 
fore I say unto you, be not a machine nor do thy work in a 
mechanical way. For thus shalt thou kill thy soul, and suicide 
is against the law and murder is against the law, for the law 
says, "Thou shalt not kill even thyself." 



109 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

I say unto all the rich and powerful and so-called leaders 
of the world that the foremost right of every full grown man 
and woman in every civilized land today is the right of steady 
and uninterrupted employment, provided it can possibly be 
furnished. To furnish labor to the workers of the world spas- 
modically is to demoralize them. It is not good, especially for 
those who work with their muscles to be rushed to death one 
day and to languish in complete idleness the next day. More- 
over, it is not wise or right or just for society to demand the 
service of skilled carpenters or stone-masons or brick-layers, 
and then give them work only one-half or two-thirds of the year, 
thus obliging them to exhaust their savings and preventing 
them from laying up the needed nest-egg for their old age. 
Therefore I say that particular pains should be taken in north- 
ern climates to teach boys two trades whenever possible, one 
trade which would give them work in summer, and another 
trade for winter. All muscle workers need a change from one 
set of muscles to another. It is absolutely necessary to their 
health. More attention must be given by men employed at 
heavy labor to their own health and much more attention must 
henceforth be given by the employers of such labor. The great- 
est resource of any country lies in the physical health and 
mental alertness of its citizens. Furthermore I say unto you 
that whenever the labor is especially exhausting or performed 
under unhealthy conditions that the hours of labor in such oc- 

110 



cupations must be proportionately lessened in order to give the 
laborer sufficient time for recuperation before he shall be called 
upon for another day's work. Now with the thousand and 
one inventions of recent years production has been so vastly 
increased, that one man can in some fields produce more than 
ten men could have produced a century ago. But the workers 
of the world are not getting their proportionate share of benefit 
from the increase of race efficiency and from the efficient ap- 
plication of racial knowledge. Men may be two or three times 
better off than they were a hundred years ago. But they are 
not ten times as well off as they should be, for in many and 
many a trade they produce ten times as much as was formerly 
produced. Where does the difference go? Into the pockets 
of the rich. Hence the increase of luxuries of all sorts, which 
is threatening the very existence of civilization. For human 
life cannot endure where the material conditions which sur- 
round men are so widely different. Economic aristocracy 
means eventually and necessarily political and social aristo- 
cracy. A free people cannot exist where a majority are in 
practical servitude to a very small minority. Great are the 
social and business ills resulting from keeping the worker from 
properly sharing in the social and business advancement of the 
world. 

Now the knowledge which makes inventions possible is 
that common stock of knowledge which is the possession of 
humanity. Down through the ages men have toiled and 
starved and risked death in order to increase this common stock 
of knowledge. An invention is only a particular and shrewd 
special adaptation to local needs of a general idea or a series 
of general ideas and principles which perhaps were first discov- 

111 



ered centuries ago. It is therefore not just or right or fair for 
a man to he allowed to become enormously wealthy by this 
special adaptation of general racial knowledge to special and 
private ends. For suppose that these general principles had not 
been laboriously hammered out by the brains and toil during 
a thousand years of a thousand men, there would be no general 
principles from which to make particular applications. Sup- 
pose that Aristotle had never lived, where would the scientific 
knowledge of these later days be? Thus the first and foremost 
fund of knowledge is racial knowledge, and this racial knowl- 
edge is far more important than any special application of it. 
Therefore the individual who makes the special application is 
entitled to his own honor and to the reward that goes with any 
new addition to the common stock. But the individual must 
not take more, nor be allowed to take more than what is due 
him. Today he takes not only his own share, but that larger 
share which belongs to the race. For the race through the 
labors of a thousand men for thousands of years has laid the 
foundations for the success of each individual man belonging 
to that race. Therefore each individual must be made to re- 
member what he owes to the race. Under present laws the 
one man in his blind selfishness is allowed to forget what he 
owes to many men. As a consequence, the interests of the 
race suffer. But it must be plain that any race is vastly more 
important than any individual member of that race. Therefore 
above all, the interests of the race must be safeguarded, and no 
man henceforth shall be allowed to take and appropriate to 
his own exclusive use what comes from and belongs to the 
storehouse of the race. For from such injustice springs in- 
numerable social ills and wrongs. Inventions, therefore and 

112 



the benefits thereof, which really belong to and are rightfully 
the possessions of the human race must be used to mitigate 
and to ultimately remove the present load of human suffering. 
But no right deed can be the product of a wrong idea. And the 
widespread wrongs today are the result of wide spread ideas 
that are false. Now the first and natural benefit to be derived 
from all the modern inventions is the shortening of the hours 
of labor. The shorter the hours the greater the benefit to men 
and the less the mountain of trouble which wrong and injustice 
are breeding. 

Six hours a day men shall labor at their tasks and no more. 
Six hours of work is plenty, provided it be done cheerfully and 
it will be done cheerfully when adequate pay is given thereof. 
Whenever it is possible, and especially in all seasons except the 
winter months, the labor should be arranged to begin at six 
o'clock in the morning and to stop at the hour of noon. The 
result of this will be to cut out the late hours and unnatural 
dissipations that now go on under gas light and electric light. 
It will enable people to go to bed with the sun and get up with 
the sun as God intended. As people have gradually drifted 
away from what is right and normal and healthy, they must 
go back to what is natural and healthy. The future of all civ- 
ilized races depends upon one thing — to secure the sound and 
healthy sleep upon which all vigor depends. Without sound 
sleep any race is doomed to unnatural vices, monstrous dissipa- 
tions and the death that follows such. Men must have time to 
develop the brains which God gave them. For without the 
brain efficient work is impossible. Therefore I say unto you, 
ye merchants and manufacturers, that you are throwing away 
the efficiency which you require, when you make the hours of 

113 



labor so long that the laborer becomes exhausted or over- 
fatigued. For efficient labor should be done with the snap and 
energy and vigor of play. When you have put into your work- 
shops the joyous spirit of your playground ye will have efficient 
labor, and not before. Therefore, be not blind! And all greed 
is blind. No man can see in the dark, but every greedy man 
lives in the dark. 



114 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

Life changes, and as life changes, men change in customs 
and in manners and in the details of their daily living. There- 
fore, newer times demand newer oracles and newer laws. The 
old principles abide, but new explanations and applications 
thereof are necessary. Therefore, I say unto you, there are 
sins today that are not set down as such in any Bible or indexed 
in any library. I say the greatest sin of modern times is physi- 
cal laziness and the love of luxury attendant thereon. No man 
loves luxury who is strong. Nay! no strong man will tolerate 
luxury, for he knows the subtle dangers and degradations 
thereof. People may temporarily be mentally active but physi- 
cally inert and lazy. They may for a time live on the stored up 
physical energies of hardy ancestors, but in the long run, physi- 
cal and mental animation and ability are one. Therefore the 
mental worker who habitually forgoes or thinks he can do 
without physical exercise is not only foolish but a sinner, J And 
his folly and sin shall react upon him. Thus the fat and thick- 
necked merchant who sits in an office all day, when for his 
soul's sake and his body's sake he needs to saw a half a cord 
of wood more or less is a sinner, and his sin shall in due time 
find him out and expose him to all the world, including his 
own conscience, by leading him into the temptations of a licen- 
tious life. He shall look with lustful eyes on his pretty type- 
writer girl, and shall lead her into the way of temptation which 
she is fighting day by day to escape. He shall do this because 
he is only half a man, the other half being beast, but not even 

115 



a dean beast at that. For she too needs the physical labor and 
exercise which she has no time to take. But I say she must 
take time. The reason why the devil has such easy work to 
catch these high toned and respectable looking sinners is be- 
cause they will not do the work which they ought to do. Such 
work, forsooth, is menial, they say and only fit for servants. Is 
anything menial that will help to save a human soul from sin 
and damnation and degradation? As to being fit only for 
servants, ye hypocrits, I say unto you that the highest rank 
and the noblest medal of honor to be won on earth or in heaven 
consists in the words, — "He was a good servant." 

Jesus was a good servant, the best servant the world has 
ever seen. And it was because he was a good servant that he 
was the Saviour. To serve truly and faithfully and loyally thy 
fellowmen is the divinest attribute and the highest achieve- 
ment of any man. Thou mayest omit thy prayers and thy ad- 
dresses and thy supplications and thy singings of hymns to 
God. But see that thou forget not thy fellowmen. Human 
needs are the first and should be the foremost care of every 
human being who believes in God. Thou canst trick the 
eyes and ears and fancies and imaginations and pride of thy 
fellowmen by thy pretended piety. Thy fellowmen may in 
their weakness forgive. But God knows and sees and under- 
stands. All the psalm-singing and church going and pious airs 
from now until doomsday will not save the soul of any man 
or of any woman who neglects to serve to the uttermost their 
fellowmen. For without unselfish human service there can be 
no religion. Believe what ye please, but if ye do not do kind 
and generous and neighborly deeds, thou shalt be damned. 

Love is the Law. There is no other Law. For God is love. 

116 



CHAPTER XL 

I say unto you that the soul and body are one. Corrupt 
the one and you will corrupt the other. Degrade the one and 
you will degrade the other. Weaken the one and you will 
weaken the other. Strengthen the one and you will strengthen 
the other. That is the Law. I say furthermore unto you that 
there is no such thing as permanent damnation. There is no 
such thing as being lost in sin f orevermore. Such pernicious 
doctrines are interpolations and additions to the Bible, not the 
teachings of Jesus nor the words of Jesus. They were put into 
the sacred writings by shrewd priests who hoped thereby the 
more easily to maintain their authority over the people. For 
it is supposed now by some men, and it was believed in olden 
times almost universally, that men must be ruled by fear. But 
I repeat to you again, God's Law is the Law of Love. He has 
no other law. A man damns himself. God does not damn 
him. A man judges himself, God does not judge him. 

Now I say unto you that men must learn to be merciful and 
just to themselves. Men must learn to be patient with them- 
selves and to be respectful to themselves. For, I say there is 
always a chance. No man ever loses his chance to be what he 
might have been. He may wander far and roam wide, but the 
minute he resolves to return to the right path, that moment 
his chance comes back to him, and his chance of reaching the 
original goal for which he set out will remain just so long as 
his good resolution remains. A man must try to recall how 

117 



long and how far he has wandered from the path in order to 
know how long and how far he must travel in order to reach 
the path again. In brief, a good resolution is the restoration 
of a chance, not the attainment thereof. Work, oftentimes 
long and hard work must back up a good resolution, or the reso- 
lution fades into mere air. 'Tis not to resolve to do a deed, but 
the deed itself that counts. Therefore I say that to do thy 
good deed and to make thy good resolution afterwards is just 
as well, for then thy resolution cannot evaporate. And it is 
evaporated good resolutions that darken the sky and fill the 
world with sorrow. 



118 



CHAPTER XU 

The church of the future shall be in the hearts of men. 
They need not go to church. They shall carry their church 
with them. They shall not worship or pray on one day only, 
or call one day the holy Sabbath day. But they shall wor- 
ship and pray every single day, and therefore all days shall 
be holy and all places shall be holy and all deeds worthy of 
being done at all shall be holy deeds and they shall be done 
in reverence and with a worshipful spirit. But upon one 
day in each seven men shall rest from their labors as before 
and it is best to retain the Sabbath day as the rest day, be- 
cause confusion must be avoided in actions and thinking 
whenever and wherever possible. The curse of the world 
is mental confusion. Too many small purposes destroy any 
great purpose. Too many small ideas shut out and leave 
room for no great idea. Unity of purpose and unity of action 
always mean strength. And from strength comes in time 
efficiency. But until the hours of labor shall be reduced to 
six hours each day — and they will be reduced as soon as 
men take away the black mask of greed that at present 
covers the eyes of their souls, I say that all labor must cease 
at noon of each Saturday throughout the year. This is nec- 
essary in order that many people who do not now find time 
to go to church at all because they need the amusement of 
the theatre or of dancing once a week shall be able to be 

rested up by Sunday afternoon in order to see and appre- 

119 



ciate and feel some of the wonders and blessings and the 
miracles of life, and therefore to worship. And without wor- 
ship man can do nothing well. Every act of a real man is an 
act of worship. True action is praise to God. Indeed there 
is no other form of praise so acceptable to God as a deed 
rightly done. For I say unto you that lip service is no real 
service at all. Psalm singing and long preaching may be a 
bore and an insult and an abomination unto the Lord. For 
God never asked any man to advise him or give suggestions 
as to how the universe should be managed. And more 
than half of all the prayers offered up in modern churches 
consist of advice to the Lord. They sound very much 
as if men were instructing a small boy as to what he 
should do. Until men shall learn to mind their own business 
and leave the Universe to God, there is no hope for them. 
For conceit and egotism are at the bottom of all falsehoods. 
A man must understand where he is at before he can know 
what he can do and how he can do it. Reverence for what 
is thy superior in real skill or knowledge is the beginning of 
all wisdom. 



120 



CHAPTER XLII 

I say unto women, this is the Law: — No matter what it 
is thou lovest, thou must love something with all thy heart 
and soul and mind. But as for thy body, be careful and rev- 
erential of it, lest it trick thee and drag thee down. For love 
is truly a passion. Then keep it pure. Love is an emotion. 
Then keep it high. Love is a sensation, then keep it clean, 
and fine. For all coarseness degrades love. No love shall 
live that cannot rise and keep rising evermore into higher 
regions and breathing purer air. While thou art young and 
in the period of thy growth I say unto women, take proper 
exercise and so much fresh air as thou canst stand, and be 
as active as possible. For the temptations of life and the 
crises of life must be fought. By fighting, life becomes strong 
and vigorous. No woman who languishes in luxury and 
eats dainty food she does not need, and gives her plump 
body the rest it does not want can be virtuous. Such a 
woman, though she be a princess and live in a palace is pre- 
paring herself and her daughters and her granddaughters 
after her, to travel the straight road to Hell along the scarlet 
way of life. For I say that luxury is the handmaiden of vice. 
No matter how fair the various forms of luxury may be, and 
how innocent and inviting their outward faces may be, I say 
that the devil lurks behind the dainty forms of every luxury 
everywhere in the world. Women need to think. Women 

121 



need what men call cold facts. A few cold facts would save 
many a woman from a life time of misery and shame and 
sorrow. I say to women furthermore that they must work 
with their muscles and develop them and they must work 
with their mind and develop it. As for their emotions, they 
have too many already. Only muscle work and brain work 
can give relief to an over wrought nervous system. Many 
a rich woman is sick for the mere want of healthy work. If 
she took off her silk dress and arrayed herself in calico or in 
gingham and went into the kitchen and bade her maid serv- 
ant come and sit in the parlor, it would be a thousand times 
better both for her and for the maid servant. For the maid 
servant would have a chance to rest her mind as well as her 
body from the routine of daily drudgery and the mistress 
would regain her health. For God intended every woman 
to be a mother, and motherhood requires much preparation 
beforehand, much care and discretion at the period of bear- 
ing children, and much wisdom after the children are born. 
A woman's whole life is and must be a preparation and a 
fulfillment of her destined service to society and to God. 
And in her whole life, woman has really not an hour to spare 
over any kind of frivolity whatsoever, a second to waste on 
any kind of dissipation whatsoever. During the period of 
her growth from girlhood to womanhood, every woman 
needs pure joy and all that she can get of it, in order that 
her passions may be kept quiet and her emotions may be 
kept normal and in equilibrium. But for frivolity women 
have no need whatever and no time at all. Wherever and 
whenever a woman assumes an air of levity or of frivolity, 

122 



it is done solely to please some fool man whom she thinks 
it advantageous to please. When women cease to try to 
please fool men or licentious men, they will bear sons who 
will not force the next generation of girls to play the antic 
parts which their mothers and grandmothers have had to 
play. When the women cease to be good actresses, they will 
be better women and nobler mothers. For to fulfill God's 
purposes women must be free to act and live the life which 
they know is alone fit for them. Whenever woman is obliged 
to compromise on what she knows in her soul and body is 
right, that minute vice is born into the world. If all the vice 
that is introduced into life under cover of a marriage contract 
could be swept away, this earth would become a Paradise 
tomorrow. 



123 



CHAPTER XLIII 

Now one of the silliest and also the most vicious things 
in the world is man's desire for mental consistency and order. 
It prevents thousands of human souls from breaking away 
from a dead and rotting past and stepping forth as free 
men to the light and warmth of a new day. When the 
Past is dead, bury it. And then cease thy crying and blub- 
bering and carrying on with thy selfish grief and hugging 
to thy heart old illusions and delusions. Go forward to thy 
work. But no one can go forward to his work who is for- 
ever looking backward. Men do not have proper insight 
and foresight, and they have entirely too much hindsight. 
The reason of so many of man's mental and moral and phy- 
sical blunderings is that men have small faith. They do not 
believe even in themselves. Yet without faith nothing is 
possible. When a man acquires faith he acquires insight 
into and a knowledge of the secrets of the entire Universe. 
For faith is the beginning of all mental and moral and phy- 
sical health and power. Henceforth I say unto you that 
Motherhood shall be honored and when Motherhood is 
rightly honored, women and womanhood shall be honored 
aright. The bearing of a healthy child, I say, is in itself 
a proof of virtue, and when any woman has born a healthy 
and winsome babe, that proof shall be enough. Law and 
custom shall honor her. Whoever else is wrong, the woman 

124 



who bears a normal child must be right, and her rights must 
be maintained against the customs and despite the ancient 
and damnable laws of any land. I say no child is illegiti- 
mate. As the word is and has been used, it is a foul and 
vicious and unmanly and inhuman lie. The father and 
mother who shall henceforth turn a daughter from the door 
who bears a child whose father is a liar, a rascal, and a 
coward, shall be damned by God and shunned by all good 
men and women. I say that Love is the Law. And when 
a girl trusting to that law shall be deceived by a man who 
is but half a man, the other half being a coward and a brute, 
she shall not lose either honor or respect. The women who 
shall be scorned by both good men and good women shall 
be those married women who refuse to bear children when 
they can, or who take secret means to rid themselves of 
children. Compared to these evil and degraded married 
females, the girl who carries in her arms a babe whose 
father deserted her shall be as an angel throned and crowned 
with laurel. Make no mistake in the meaning of these 
words. I say that marriage is the only honorable and normal 
state for men and women, and the man and woman who 
have once been parents shall cleave unto each other. If 
incompatible, they may abide in different parts of the same 
house, if necessary, but for the children's sake they must 
work and toil and save and do whatever lies in their power 
to give their children every fair chance in life. By working 
for and toiling for and loving their children, they may in 
time learn to adjust their differences and be at one. But 
these hasty divorces of modern times and hasty re-marriages 

125 



of parents are an abomination that makes even honest beasts 
to blush with shame. I say that virtue must be a deed and 
not merely a name; that respectability must be actual and 
vital and real, not fanciful and artificial and technical. Vir- 
tues are won by toil, not inherited. Honor is the guerdon 
of hard fought battles, not an empty name on a family es- 
cutcheon. And whoso thinks that he can inherit either a 
good name or a good position in society is mistaken. In 
the eyes of God the position and name of every man and 
woman is due to individual effort, not to ancestral effort. 
Therefore there is no such thing as honor or a good name 
except when won by the individual who achieves it by toil 
and self-sacrifice. Artificial laws and artificial judgments 
are the abominations and damnations of human society. 
Men must be natural and sensible and honest and fair deal- 
ing and straight spoken before they can be virtuous. There 
is no such thing as passive virtue. Virtue is the virile 
strength and right action of the soul, acquired by the doing 
of just deeds. 



126 



CHAPTER XLIV 

I say unto you that unnatural life shall breed unnat- 
ural crimes and that a false life shall breed a thousand un- 
guessed ills. Life must be wholesome if it be healthy. And 
to be healthy life must be what it was first intended to be, 
a joyous, vigorous, free and active battle of the soul against 
its enemies. And the enemies of the soul are many. The 
subtle allurement of the senses is an enemy to the soul. All 
forms of pride and vanity are enemies to the soul. The de- 
sire of a pretty woman to wear a pretty bonnet down the 
center aisle of a church may be an enemy to the soul. Or 
the same action may be as innocent as a child's laughter, 
provided the soul lays no stress on nor pays especial heed 
to the bonnet. Many a pretty woman would be brave enough 
to wear a faded and out-of-date bonnet to church upon Easter 
morning if she really thought that it was the Lord's will 
that she should do so. But most women could not be con- 
vinced that it was the Lord's will until Easter Day was passed 
and a pretty bonnet had been worn. The majority, even 
after they were convinced would declare that they were 
no heroes, — that heroism was a coarse and masculine virtue 
unsuited to women. The power and usefulness of conven- 
tionality is great. Most virtue is conventional virtue. It 
must be while people are still unthinking creatures. Espe- 
cially as in the case of women who live upon emotion, they 

127 



have no time to think. For they must decide at once what 
is right and wrong and act upon the decision. Therefore 
the fear of violating convention and propriety is a great 
force in keeping people up to the moral law. Yet the time 
does come and must come when each individual thinks, and 
when each man and woman decides they must go to a higher 
guide than convention, and that guide is conscience. Now 
in groping their way upward from the conventional life to 
the higher life, people must keep their minds on wholesome 
things if they would keep healthy. All things are good if 
they are used properly and in moderation. 

Inventions were intended to aid man. But when in- 
stead of men using an invention, the invention begins to use 
men, beware of it! Nature is still the mother and guide to 
all men and women. When, therefore, men and women 
become so fond of the things they make instead of the things 
God has made for them, let them beware. Beware, I say, 
of becoming so fond of clothes that thou art afraid of thy 
naked body or of the naked body of anybody else. Beware 
of having an unclean mind. When the sight of thy own 
beautiful body or of the beautiful body of a member of the 
opposite sex, suggests to thee improper or vicious thoughts, 
then know that thy mind is not clean. And the dirtiest and 
foulest and most contagious thing in the universe is an un- 
clean mind. It will breed more malaria than a swamp. It 
will foster more disease than tons of rotting vegetables. It 
is more poisonous than arsenic. The evil that can be bred 
up in one unclean mind is beyond calculation. Therefore, 
I say, keep the mind clean if thou wouldst live clean and 

128 



wholesome and healthy lives. For the first need of every 
man and woman is not that their body be clean, but that 
their mind be clean. Without a clean mind, there can be 
neither morality nor religion. For the mind is the temple 
of the soul. 



129 



CHAPTER XLV 

Discord is death. Where discords reign nothing can 
be well Mental discord is the parent of all diseases and 
of all weaknesses and of all sorrows and of all ills. Har- 
mony is the first great law of life. For what is love but 
harmony in action? Love is the music of the soul that goes 
forth to bless and to gather into the fold of God the wan- 
dering sheep that hear the tinkle of the bell. And when- 
ever men really hear aright, all discord flees abashed. For 
naught can harm the soul that understands. Now I say 
unto you that the time is coming when diseases shall again 
be treated as they were among the Greeks. For smart as 
people think themselves in these latter days, they have not 
yet learned to treat disease with music. Most ailments that 
come from misused emotions and which discord has intro- 
duced into the body of man by lack of understanding and 
because the man was out of harmony with his surroundings 
shall be banished or nullified by music. Many diseases of 
women could be cured by music. Most cases of incipient 
insanity and some cases of apparently incurable insanity 
can be cured by music. The music must be carefully se- 
lected, however, with a view to each individual need. To 
people suffering from bodily starvation or insufficient nutri- 
tion, music that is too strong or too loud may be detrimental, 
because a body run down or ill nurtured or tired out assimi- 

130 



tates its food best when absolutely quiescent. Common 
sense and shrewd observation and the finest skill must be 
brought to bear on these questions. To prevent disease, 
takes a higher order of skill than to cure disease. The posi- 
tive is always higher than the negative. The cure of disease 
by means of music shall be one of the marvellous moral 
and spiritual and intellectual triumphs of man. The prin- 
ciple has been long known, but the limit of its developed 
possibilities have never been reached. In the coming years 
that limit shall at least be approached. And what would 
now seem miracles shall be wrought by men who study the 
mind as men now study the body. They shall then find 
that all physical perfection and strength is absolutely de- 
pendent on and correlated to mental perfection. 

A Christian is one who does as Christ teaches; who 
follows where Christ leads; who heeds the words that Christ 
spoke. And Christ's words are two words, Justice and Love. 
Now I say unto you that Pride is a Pagan quality, and Van- 
ity and Greed and Envy and even worldly ambitions — all 
these are pagan characteristics and utterly opposed to and 
in defiance of thy Lord Jesus. So then look down into thy 
soul and say unto thyself, Am I really a Christian? Judge 
thyself. I will not judge thee. Yet thy judgment shall be 
my judgment, only try to make it a little merciful, for no 
man is quite so bad as he seems to be to his own conscience. 
The consciences of men — especially the consciences of men 
who have sinned — are apt to be very severe and sweeping 
in their condemnations. Therefore try to be a little bit 
merciful for thou still hast a chance to be saved if thou wilt 

131 



see clearly and act promptly upon what thou knowest to be 
right. Every right action is a rung on the ladder that leads 
to Heaven. 



132 



CHAPTER XLVI 

I say unto you that this world must be a world of Jus- 
tice before it can be a world of Love and Kindness and 
Mercy. For Justice is the foundation stone of all things. 
And without the right foundation, ye can build no house 
where love may abide amid the light and flowers and music 
of real life and where Mercy, Love's beautiful handmaiden, 
may spread her gracious gifts around and waft her precious 
influence over the hearts and souls and minds of men. There 
is and can be no substitute for Justice. Even Love and 
Mercy cannot do the deeds that belong to Justice. There- 
fore I say to ye, Be just and render justice to all men and 
all women and all children. Think not that thy generous 
deed or thy loving deed which thou doest can take the place 
of the just deed which thou leaves! undone. It has well 
been written, Be just before you are generous. Why, say- 
est thou, must I be just, when generosity is so much more 
beautiful a thing? Because if thou doest thy so called deed 
of generosity first, it may prove to be no deed of generosity 
at all but only hypocritic injustice masking as such. For 
instance, throughout our so called and fondly named Chris- 
tian world today many great merchants who are at the head 
of these business institutions called Department Stores, will 
often pay a thousand dollars per week less to their employees 
than the workers are justly entitled to, considering the serv- 

133 



ices rendered. Thus they will pay cash girls and boys three 
or three dollars and a half per week instead of four or four 
dollars and a half; they will pay clerks five dollars a week 
who should receive six dollars; and they will pay many 
other clerks seven dollars who shall receive eight or nine 
dollars per week; they will pay experienced and loyal and 
devoted clerks fifteen dollars per week who are justly entitled 
to twenty dollars per week. To a few others they pay twenty 
dollars per week who really earn and are entitled to receive 
forty, fifty or even a hundred dollars per week, and would 
receive such amounts if they were paid according to the 
rules of Justice, instead of according to the laws of Greed. 
Now at Christmas time many an employer who by scaling 
down wages saves one thousand dollars per week or fifty- 
two thousand dollars per year from wages justly and rightly 
due his employees, will give them generous gifts of turkeys 
or baskets of choice fruits, or five, ten or twenty dollar gold 
pieces, thus with apparent generosity spending five or ten 
thousand dollars while he is still saving for himself forty 
thousand dollars out of money justly due for services ren- 
dered, but which his employees dare not demand, lest they 
lose their employment altogether. Such is a sample of one 
kind of generosity to be seen in almost every city in every 
Christian country in the entire world today. Is it any won- 
der that hypocrisy and injustice are rife in the land when 
men return in generosity one out of every five dollars of which 
they have deprived their fellows through the robber rules of 
Greed? Therefore I say unto you, Be just first. If after 
being just thou canst also find time and hast the good will 

134 



to be generous, well and good. But think not to cover up 
thy foul deeds of Injustice and wrong and oppression by thy 
petty and pretty and fair seeming deeds of mercy and gen- 
erosity. It cannot be done. Thy conscience knows what 
thou art, thou Hypocrit. And God sees and judges thee 
for the dust which thou shalt remain until thy soul shall be 
cleansed and thou doest what thou knowest to be right. Take 
not the easy road, for it will prove to be the hard road. Seek 
not the fairest and sunniest path when thou settest out on 
thy journey in the morning, for it may lead thee into bram- 
bles and thickets and foul swamps before night. But go 
straight along the way where Duty callest thee, and trust 
in God. 



135 



CHAPTER XLVH 

The greatest injustice and oppressions of the world are 
today the direct outcome of War. Except when fought to 
establish or maintain freedom, not only is war wrong but 
it is silly and foolish. War is fit for green boys, not for 
grown men. As a matter of fact, it is green boys who com- 
pose a large part of the armies of the world. Thus the fate 
of a nation is often decided by the unthinking portions of 
it. The real battles of the world are moral and mental and 
spiritual battles. Physical contention never settles any 
question permanently. For the battle of Life is the battle 
of ideas. No Idea dies until it has been clearly proved to 
be false. Now the world is filled with antiquated and thread- 
bare and outworn notions. Many of these old and silly and 
childish ideas are part of the history of the race. Conse- 
quently they are dear, as all reminiscences of childhood are 
dear, even when foolish. They go down from age to age 
as intellectual lumber which ought to be discarded, but 
which, like the toys of childhood, are kept by men and 
women as reminders of their youthful days. But war must 
go. It is advocated in great part by designing or unthink- 
ing or foolish or ignorant or brutal men. No matter who 
or what the man is, whoever advocates war is either a fool 
or a villain. If the man who advocates war objects to being 
called a fool in consequence thereof, he may take the second 

136 



adjective wherewith to decorate himself. But there is no 
third one. Too long have foolish men and women with the 
instincts of villains continued to impose this monstrous bur- 
den of the equipment and preparation for war upon the 
human race. Any race had better die at once or be put into 
the position of being swept off the face of the earth rather 
than to die by inches. And war taxes are killing practi- 
cally every nation in the world today, by inches. War is 
the greatest foe Democracy has to fear. War is the great- 
est friend that tyrants and robbers know. For it is war 
which gives tyrants and robbers the opportunities of their 
lives. War puts a premium upon all the base and brutal and 
cruel and inhuman and foolish passions of men. While base 
things go to the front, good things go to the rear. With 
every so-called victory that an army wins, its home land 
suffers a thousand defeats. Every victorious huzza smothers a 
thousand unheard humiliations. No war has any justifica- 
tion except a war for freedom. 



137 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

Think straight, see clear, and then go forward to thy 
object without deviation or turning. Compromise is the 
curse of the world. God knows not the word. Sunshine is 
sunshine, light is light; darkness is darkness; right is right, 
and wrong is wrong. Polite and tactful compromise is the 
bane of society. To make a world in which compromise is 
not necessary; to create a society in which white lying and 
black lying is not needed, this should be the object of each 
man and woman. The beauty and the glory and the rhythm 
and the music of the world comes from truth. For truth 
is the handmaiden of Love. And what canst thou find in 
any worthy art or literature or poetry or sculpture except 
an attempt to express the meaning of love? Love gives the 
poet music. Love gives the artist imagination. Love flings 
the sense of beauty broadcast over the world and from the 
farthest corners of earth, love brings all good fairies to wait 
upon and serve the man or woman who dares to live the 
truth. The laughter in the voices of little children, the red 
blood in their cheeks, the flashing light written in their eyes, 
the light and airy motions of their dancing — all these come 
from love. True love is gentle and self-controlled and 
modest and forbearing and strong. I say unto you there 
is no physical or moral or mental or spiritual strength with- 
out love. The senses of man are given to use, not to abuse* 

138 



Rightly used all physical sense is part of the divine order 
of the world and therefore innocent. Tis the misuse of 
anything that is sin. Men have used and developed their 
bodies at the expense of their minds. Hence cometh sick- 
ness and sorrow. For the minds and souls of men are their 
most precious possessions, and therefore should be their 
chief care. Life is filled with beauty and music and joy 
when men learn to perceive and to understand the right 
relation of all things. Therefore I say unto you, think 
straight and see clear and then go forth to thy object with- 
out deviation or turning. 



139 



CHAPTER XLIX 

Thou shalt still be followers and disciples of Christ, but 
thou shalt worship Him and admire Him and love Him near 
by as a man, not far off as a God. Therefore thou shalt 
do His works and put into practice His teachings and thou 
shalt in many ways live His life. Thou shalt not fear pov- 
erty or obscurity or lack of social position nor scantiness of 
opportunity. Thou shalt cultivate the riches of thy heart 
and soul, and then thou shalt understand. When thou hast 
understood, wealth will be seen for what it is, — a two-edged 
sword that must be handled very carefully. When the soul 
is developed, the body shall be filled with courage and thou 
shalt laugh at the fear of death, even from starvation. I 
say thou shalt laugh at Death. For with the grace of God 
within thee and the love of God around thee, mortal terrors 
shall be unknown, and physical fear shall be unfelt. With- 
out fear thy weaknesses and ills and sorrows shall fall away 
from thee, and thou shalt arise strong and eager, virile and 
alert as a runner trained for a great race. For Life is a 
great race, and he wins who doth not fear, and who con- 
sequently meets the woes of life with Laughter, — not un- 
seemly guffaws, but with a quiet enjoyment that feels the 
mental sunshine and sees the spiritual light that envelopes 
the world. Thus, I say, I send unto you this Gospel of Hope. 
Despise it or love it, but do not dispute about it. For of 

140 



all folly in the world, religious arguments are the most 
foolish. No religion ever came from or was seriously af- 
fected by argument. For religion consists of the reverential 
perception by the entire nature of a man of the deep things 
of life, and to attain to this perception requires quiet contem- 
plation; long observations and much study alone and in peace. 
Noisy clamor as of a modern revival stabs religion to death. 
And dragging people or attempting to drag people to salva- 
tion by the nape of their neck is folly. Any self-respecting 
person has a right to refuse to allow the deepest and holiest 
things in his nature to be made a public spectacle. Such 
in reality is the revival method of saving souls. I say unto 
you that a man need not say one word about what he be- 
lieves, provided that he does right and just deeds. They 
will speak for him. Lip service and psalm singing have 
become an offense and an abomination in the eyes of the 
Lord, because they are being used as a sort of spiritual oint- 
ment wherewith hypocrits are salving their consciences, thus 
hoping to save their souls. But I say unto you there is no 
salvation for the hypocrit until he throws off the wolf clothing 
of hypocrisy. 

Again I say unto you, believe or not believe in words, 
but if thy deeds are right and just and holy that is all the 
belief that God asks of thee. And no other kind will do. 
Thou shalt go to church or not as thy feelings dictate. But 
one thing and one thing alone thou must do, — be just! Be 
truthful! Be loving. For the law of life is Love. There 
is no other law. 



141 



CHAPTER L 

Again, and for the last time I repeat. Love is the Law. 
Thou shalt have and thou shalt obey no other law. All 
men are thy brothers. All lands are thy lands. All homes 
shall be thy home. For unto the ends of the earth discord 
and suspicion and envy and hate and enmity shall disappear 
when this law is fully understood, not as theology or as re- 
ligion but as the practical everyday business rule of life. 
Religion has no place so sacred as in the homes and counting 
houses and factories and iron mills and fields of laboring 
men. Sunday is truly a day of rest and meditation. But 
the time for worship is every hour of every working day 
and every minute of thy waking hours. Every stroke of 
daily toil shall be an act of worship. Everything honestly 
done by every honest workman in the world is a prayer. 
Each blow of useful and humble service is a prayer. Ever 
moment's honest labor is the sweetest song of praise that 
earth can send to heaven for the ears of angels to hear. The 
day is approaching when such a religion as I tell thee of and 
such a law as I have prophesied will be the law of all men 
in all lands under the sun. 

State but do not debate the law. Truth needs no ad- 
vocate. A simple statement is enough. Therefore if anyone 
wishes to cling to his own creeds and to his old beliefs and 
to his ancient manner of worship, do not disturb him. Let 

him sleep or dream in peace. But when he awakes he will 

142 



come to thee and say: What is this new Gospel of Hope 
that I hear about? And thou shalt give him or help him to 
procure a copy of the Book, and then shalt send him away 
with thy blessing. For love being the law, how canst thou 
do less, and Love being the law, why need thou do more? 
Now God be with thee and farewell! In the sunshine 
of this Holy Christmas morning these last words of the new 
Message are written down for the sake of men everywhere 
throughout the world. I send you love and fair greeting 
and this, my new Message which shall be called, — The Gospel 
of Hope. 

Dec. 25th, 1911. 



143 



$ta£tdcript 



The acceptance of this message need not and will not 
involve any upheaval or disorder, civic or religious. Each 
man who reads will first be puzzled, but even amid his be- 
wilderment, he will begin to understand and long before he 
has finished he will perceive clearly what his mind never 
quite grasped before, that is, the deadly foes which hypocrisy 
and humbug and lying and injustice and hate and discord 
are and have been to the progress of the human race. Every- 
where and among all races underneath the sun where these 
words are translated from the English language into other 
tongues, men and women will lift their heads, and with a 
newer and greater faith than ever felt before, they will raise 
their eyes to the full light of day and quietly and firmly they 
will say, I understand at last! Now I too will work and labor 
and toil for the coming of the New Day, for I see a hope 
that my efforts shall not be in vain. Thus shall men say 
everywhere, gaining in their souls new understanding of 
the words, The Brotherhood of Man. Thus is this Message 
called The Gospel of Hope. No other name was appro- 
priate. For this Message shall bring new hope to all men 
everywhere. Only the tyrants and the rulers who are unjust 
shall cry out against it. And by the loudness of their cries 
can the people learn how true the Message is. By the loud- 
ness and bitterness and vehemence of clerical denunciation 

144 



shall the people he able to clearly see how vital and true 
this Message is. For the trained minds of worldly and am- 
bitious ecclesiastics are doing more to keep alive and uphold 
established tyranny than all other causes put together, in- 
cluding the armies and navies of the world. I say unto you 
that there is no hope for churches or for church going 
Christianity until the spirit of I-Am-Holier-Than-Thou is ex- 
pelled therefrom. And it never will be expelled until every 
follower of Christ shall feel and understand that the rum 
seller and the scarlet woman and the blasphemer are also 
God's children, and insomuch as their need is greater, the 
greater shall thy service to them be to meet that need. I 
say further: Thou art thy brother's keeper, and woe unto 
thee if thou neglect thy charge. It were good to dump all 
the psalm books and prayer books and hymn books out by 
the roadside and then to dump the misguided Christians 
with them. Then beneath God's blue sky and beneath the 
might and marvels and wonders of His holy world, thou 
mayst learn humility for thyself and charity for other people. 
For without breadth of view there can be no real sympathy. 
Without clearness of insight, there can be no efficient action. 
Without purity of heart, there can be no religion. God does 
not and will not countenance Vanity or Pride or Uncharity, 
or Envy or any form of Hate or Disdain in those who pre- 
tend to serve Him and to do His work. Therefore, first of 
all, cleanse thy heart and mind of impurity with the same 
zeal with which thou puttest soap upon thy body. For only 
a clean mind and a pure heart shall be worthy of serving God. 

— The End — 

145 



This Book 

"^e Gospel of ^w H 

(not including Foreword and Postscript) 
contains 50 chapters and 35,383 words. 

Printed this 12th of January, 1914 . 

This 2nd edition consists of 135 copies, printed 
from same type, February 12, 1914, 



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